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THE 
LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

OF 
WALTER  H.  PAGE 


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THE 

LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF 
WALTER  H.  PAGE 

BY 
BURTON  J.  HENDRIGK 


VOLUME 
I 


GARDEN   CITY  NEW   YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1922 


COPYRIGHT,  1921,  1922,  BY 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  OF  TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 

PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

AT 
THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS,  GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 

First  Edition 
after  the  printing  of  377  de  luxe  copies 


College 
Library 

E 


Pl4 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

Among  the  many  who  have  assisted  in  the  preparation  of 
this  Biography  especial  acknowledgment  is  made  to  Mr. 
Irwin  Laughlin,  First  Secretary  and  Counsellor  of  the  Lon- 
don Embassy  under  Mr.  Page.  Mr.  Page's  papers  show  the 
high  regard  which  he  entertained  for  Mr.  Laughlin  's  abilities 
and  character,  and  the  author  similarly  has  found  Mr. 
Laughlin  s  assistance  indispensable.  Mr.  Laughlin  has  had 
the  goodness  to  read  the  manuscript  and  make  numerous  sug- 
gestions, all  for  the  purpose  of  reenforcing  the  accuracy  of  the 
narrative.  The  author  gratefully  remembers  many  long  con- 
versations with  Viscount  Grey  of  Fallodon,  in  which  Anglo- 
American  relations  from  1913  to  1916  were  exhaustively 
canvassed  and  many  side-lights  thrown  upon  Mr.  Page's  con- 
duct of  his  difficult  and  delicate  duties.  The  British  Foreign 
Office  most  courteously  gave  the  writer  permission  to  examine 
a  large  number  of  documents  in  its  archives  bearing  upon  Mr. 
Pages  ambassadorship  and  consented  to  the  publication  of 
several  of  the  most  important. 

B.  J.  H. 


1C4SCG4 


CONTENTS 
VOLUME  I 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    A  RECONSTRUCTION  BOYHOOD  ....  1 

II.     JOURNALISM 32 

III.  "THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN" 64 

IV.  THE  WILSONIAN  ERA  BEGINS  ....  102 
V.     ENGLAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR     ....  132 

VI.     "POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO  .  175 

VII.     PERSONALITIES  OF  THE  MEXICAN  PROBLEM  215 

VIII.     HONOUR  AND  DISHONOUR  IN  PANAMA      .  232 

IX.    AMERICA  TRIES  TO  PREVENT  THE  EURO- 
PEAN WAR 270 

X.     THE  GRAND  SMASH 301 

XI.     ENGLAND  UNDER  THE  STRESS  OF  WAR    .  327 

XII.     "WAGING  NEUTRALITY" 357 

XIII.     GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  .  398 


Vll 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING  PAGE 


No.  6  Grosvenor  Square,  the  American  Embassy 

under  Mr.  Page 308 

Irwin  Laughlin,  Secretary  of  the  American  Embassy 

at  London,  1912-1917,  Counsellor  1916-1919  .     309 


THE 
LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

OF 
WALTER  H.  PAGE 


THE  LIFE  AND   LETTERS  OF 
WALTER  H.  PAGE 

CHAPTER  I 

A    RECONSTRUCTION    BOYHOOD 


THE  earliest  recollections  of  any  man  have  great  bio- 
graphical interest,  and  this  is  especially  the  case 
with  Walter  Page,  for  not  the  least  dramatic  aspect  of  his 
life  was  that  it  spanned  the  two  greatest  wars  in  history. 
Page  spent  his  last  weeks  in  England,  at  Sandwich,  on 
the  coast  of  Kent;  every  day  and  every  night  he  could 
hear  the  pounding  of  the  great  guns  in  France,  as  the 
Germans  were  making  their  last  desperate  attempt  to 
reach  Paris  or  the  Channel  ports.  His  memories  of  his 
childhood  days  in  America  were  similarly  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  war.  Page  was  a  North  Carolina  boy;  he  has 
himself  recorded  the  impression  that  the  Civil  War  left 
upori  his  mind. 

"One  day,"  he  writes,  "when  the  cotton  fields  were 
white  and  the  elm  leaves  were  falling,  in  the  soft  autumn 
of  the  Southern  climate  wherein  the  sky  is  fathomlessly 
clear,  the  locomotive's  whistle  blew  a  much  longer  time 
than  usual  as  the  train  approached  Millworth.  It  did 
not  stop  at  so  small  a  station  except  when  there  was  some- 
body to  get  off  or  to  get  on,  and  so  long  a  blast  meant  that 
someone  was  coming.  Sam  and  I  ran  down  the  avenue  of 
elms  to  see  who  it  was.  Sam  was  my  Negro  companion, 

i 


2  THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

philosopher,  and  friend.  I  was  ten  years  old  and  Sam 
said  that  he  was  fourteen.  There  was  constant  talk 
about  the  war.  Many  men  of  the  neighbourhood  had 
gone  away  somewhere — that  was  certain;  but  Sam  and  I 
had  a  theory  that  the  war  was  only  a  story.  We  had 
been  fooled  about  old  granny  Thomas's  bringing  the  baby 
and  long-ago  we  had  been  fooled  also  about  Santa  Glaus. 
The  war  might  be  another  such  invention,  and  we  some- 
times suspected  that  it  was.  But  we  found  out  the  truth 
that  day,  and  for  this  reason  it  is  among  my  clearest  early 
recollections. 

"For,  when  the  train  stopped,  they  put  off  a  big  box 
and  gently  laid  it  in  the  shade  of  the  fence.  The  only 
man  at  the  station  was  the  man  who  had  come  to  change 
the  mail-bags;  and  he  said  that  this  was  Billy  Morris's 
coffin  and  that  he  had  been  killed  in  a  battle.  He  asked 
us  to  stay  with  it  till  he  could  send  word  to  Mr.  Morris, 
who  lived  two  miles  away.  The  man  came  back  pres- 
ently and  leaned  against  the  fence  till  old  Mr.  Morris 
arrived,  an  hour  or  more  later.  The  lint  of  cotton  was 
on  his  wagon,  for  he  was  hauling  his  crop  to  the  gin  when 
the  sad  news  reached  him;  and  he  came  in  his  shirt 
sleeves,  his  wife  on  the  wagon  seat  with  him. 

"All  the  neighbourhood  gathered  at  the  church,  a 
funeral  was  preached  and  there  was  a  long  prayer  for  our 
success  against  the  invaders,  and  Billy  Morris  was  buried. 
I  remember  that  I  wept  the  more  because  it  now  seemed 
to  me  that  my  doubt  about  the  war  had  somehow  done 
Billy  Morris  an  injustice.  Old  Mrs.  Gregory  wept  more 
loudly  than  anybody  else ;  and  she  kept  saying,  while  the 
service  was  going  on,  'It'll  be  my  John  next.'  In  a 
little  while,  sure  enough,  John  Gregory's  coffin  was  put 
off  the  train,  as  Billy  Morris's  had  been,  and  I  regarded 
her  as  a  woman  gifted  with  prophecy.  Other  coffins,  too, 


A    RECONSTRUCTION    BOYHOOD  3 

were  put  off  from  time  to  time.  About  the  war  there 
could  no  longer  be  a  doubt.  And,  a  little  later,  its  reali- 
ties and  horrors  came  nearer  home  to  us,  with  swift,  deep 
experiences. 

"One  day  my  father  took  me  to  the  camp  and  parade 
ground  ten  miles  away,  near  the  capital.  The  General 
and  the  Governor  sat  on  horses  and  the  soldiers  marched 
by  them  and  the  band  played.  They  were  going  to  the 
front.  There  surely  must  be  a  war  at  the  front,  I  told 
Sam  that  night.  Still  more  coffins  were  brought  home, 
too,  as  the  months  and  the  years  passed;  and  the  women 
of  the  neighbourhood  used  to  come  and  spend  whole  days 
with  my  mother,  sewing  for  the  soldiers.  So  precious 
became  woollen  cloth  that  every  rag  was  saved  and  the 
threads  were  unravelled  to  be  spun  and  woven  into  new 
fabrics.  And  they  baked  bread  and  roasted  chickens 
and  sheep  and  pigs  and  made  cakes,  all  to  go  to  the 
soldiers  at  the  front."1 

The  quality  that  is  uppermost  in  the  Page  stock,  both 
in  the  past  and  in  the  present  generation,  is  that  of  the 
builder  and  the  pioneer.  The  ancestor  of  the  North  Caro- 
lina Pages  was  a  Lewis  Page,  who,  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  left  the  original  American  home  in 
Virginia,  and  started  life  anew  in  what  was  then  regarded 
as  the  less  civilized  country  to  the  south.  Several  ex- 
planations have  survived  as  to  the  cause  of  his  departure, 
one  being  that  his  interest  in  the  rising  tide  of  Methodism 
had  made  him  uncongenial  to  his  Church  of  England 
relatives;  in  the  absence  of  definite  knowledge,  however, 
it  may  safely  be  assumed  that  the  impelling  motive  was 
that  love  of  seeking  out  new  things,  of  constructing  a 
new  home  in  the  wilderness,  which  has  never  forsaken  his 


"The  Southerner,"  Chapter  I.    The  first  chapter  in  this  novel  is  practi- 
cally autobiographical,  though  fictitious  names  have  been  used. 


4  THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF    WALTER   H.    PAGE 

descendants.  His  son,  Anderson  Page,  manifesting  this 
same  love  of  change,  went  farther  south  into  Wake  County, 
and  acquired  a  plantation  of  a  thousand  acres  about  twelve 
miles  north  of  Raleigh.  He  cultivated  this  estate  with 
slaves,  sending  his  abundant  crops  of  cotton  and  tobacco 
to  Petersburg,  Virginia,  a  traffic  that  made  him  suf- 
ficiently prosperous  to  give  several  of  his  sons  a  college 
education.  The  son  who  is  chiefly  interesting  at  the 
present  time,  Allison  Francis  Page,  the  father  of  the  future 
Ambassador,  did  not  enjoy  this  opportunity.  This  fact 
in  itself  gives  an  insight  into  his  character.  While  his 
brothers  were  grappling  with  Latin  and  Greek  and  the- 
ology— one  of  them  became  a  Methodist  preacher  of  the 
hortatory  type  for  which  the  South  is  famous — we  catch 
glimpses  of  the  older  man  battling  with  the  logs  in  the 
Cape  Fear  River,  or  penetrating  the  virgin  pine  forest, 
felling  trees  and  converting  its  raw  material  to  the  uses 
of  a  growing  civilization.  Like  many  of  the  Page  breed, 
this  Page  was  a  giant  in  size  and  in  strength,  as  sound 
morally  and  physically  as  the  mighty  forests  in  which  a 
considerable  part  of  his  life  was  spent,  brave,  determined, 
aggressive,  domineering  almost  to  the  point  of  intoler- 
ance, deeply  religious  and  abstemious — a  mixture  of  the 
frontiersman  and  the  Old  Testament  prophet.  Walter 
Page  dedicated  one  of  his  books1  to  his  father,  in  words 
that  accurately  sum  up  his  character  and  career.  "To 
the  honoured  memory  of  my  father,  whose  work  was  work 
that  built  up  the  commonwealth."  Indeed,  Frank  Page 
— for  this  is  the  name  by  which  he  was  generally  known — 
spent  his  whole  life  in  these  constructive  labours.  He 
founded  two  towns  in  North  Carolina,  Gary  and  Aber- 
deen; in  the  City  of  Raleigh  he  constructed  hotels  and 
other  buildings ;  his  enterprising  and  restless  spirit  opened 

1>lThe  Rebiulding  of  Old  Commonwealths."  (1902.) 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  5 

up  Moore  County — which  includes  the  Pinehurst  region; 
he  scattered  his  logging  camps  and  his  sawmills  all  over 
the  face  of  the  earth ;  and  he  constructed  a  railroad  through 
the  pine  woods  that  made  him  a  rich  man. 

Though  he  was  not  especially  versed  in  the  learning  of 
the  schools,  Walter  Page's  father  had  a  mind  that  was 
keen  and  far-reaching.  He  was  a  pioneer  in  politics  as 
he  was  in  the  practical  concerns  of  life.  Though  he  was 
the  son  of  slave-holding  progenitors  and  even  owned 
slaves  himself,  he  was  not  a  believer  in  slavery.  The 
country  that  he  primarily  loved  was  not  Moore  County 
or  North  Carolina,  but  the  United  States  of  America. 
In  politics  he  was  a  Whig,  which  meant  that,  in  the 
years  preceding  the  Civil  War,  he  was  opposed  to  the 
extension  of  slavery  and  did  not  regard  the  election  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  sufficient  provocation  for  the  seces- 
sion of  the  Southern  States.  It  is  therefore  not  surpris- 
ing that  Walter  Page,  in  the  midst  of  the  London  turmoil 
of  1916,  should  have  found  his  thoughts  reverting  to  his 
father  as  he  remembered  him  in  Civil  War  days.  That 
gaunt  figure  of  America's  time  of  agony  proved  an  in- 
spiration and  hope  in  the  anxieties  that  assailed  the  Am- 
bassador. "When  our  Civil  War  began,"  wrote  Page  to 
Col.  Edward  M.  House — the  date  was  November  24, 
1916,  one  of  the  darkest  days  for  the  Allied  cause — "every 
man  who  had  a  large  and  firm  grip  on  economic  facts 
foresaw  how  it  would  end — not  when  but  how.  Young 
as  I  was,  I  recall  a  conversation  between  my  father  and 
the  most  distinguished  judge  of  his  day  in  North  Caro- 
lina. They  put  down  on  one  side  the  number  of  men  in 
the  Confederate  States,  the  number  of  ships,  the  number 
of  manufactures,  as  nearly  as  they  knew,  the  number  of 
skilled  workmen,  the  number  of  guns,  the  aggregate  of 
wealth  and  of  possible  production.  On  the  other  side 


6  THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

they  put  down  the  best  estimate  they  could  make  of  all 
these  things  in  the  Northern  States.  The  Northern 
States  made  two  (or  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  it  were  three) 
times  as  good  a  showing  in  men  and  resources  as  the 
Confederacy  had.  'Judge,'  said  my  father,  'this  is  the 
most  foolhardy  enterprise  that  man  ever  undertook.' 
But  Yancey  of  Alabama  was  about  that  time  making 
five-hour  speeches  to  thousands  of  people  all  over  the 
South,  declaring  that  one  Southerner  could  whip  five 
Yankees,  and  the  awful  slaughter  began  and  darkened 
our  childhood  and  put  all  our  best  men  where  they  would 
see  the  sun  no  more.  Our  people  had  at  last  to  accept 
worse  terms  than  they  could  have  got  at  the  beginning. 
This  World  War,  even  more  than  our  Civil  War,  is  an 
economic  struggle.  Put  down  on  either  side  the  same 
items  that  my  father  and  the  judge  put  down  and  add  the 
items  up.  You  will  see  the  inevitable  result." 

If  we  are  seeking  an  ancestral  explanation  for  that 
moral  ruggedness,  that  quick  perception  of  the  difference 
between  right  and  wrong,  that  unobscured  vision  into 
men  and  events,  and  that  deep  devotion  to  America  and 
to  democracy  which  formed  the  fibre  of  Walter  Page's 
being,  we  evidently  need  look  no  further  than  his  father. 
But  the  son  had  qualities  which  the  older  man  did  not 
possess — an  enthusiasm  for  literature  and  learning,  a  love 
of  the  beautiful  in  Nature  and  in  art,  above  all  a  gentleness 
of  temperament  and  of  manner.  These  qualities  he  held 
in  common  with  his  mother.  On  his  father's  side  Page 
was  undiluted  English ;  on  his  mother's  he  was  French  and 
English.  Her  father  was  John  Samuel  Raboteau,  the 
descendant  of  Huguenot  refugees  who  had  fled  from 
France  on  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes;  her 
mother  was  Esther  Barclay,  a  member  of  a  family  which 
gave  the  name  of  Barclaysville  to  a  small  town  half  way 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  7 

between  Raleigh  and  Fayetteville,  North  Carolina.  It 
is  a  member  of  this  tribe  to  whom  Page  once  referred  as 
the  "vigorous  Barclay  who  held  her  receptions  to  notable 
men  in  her  bedroom  during  the  years  of  her  bedridden 
condition."  She  was  the  proprietor  of  the  "Half  Way 
House,"  a  tavern  located  between  Fayetteville  and 
Raleigh;  and  in  her  old  age  she  kept  royal  state,  in  the 
fashion  which  Page  describes,  for  such  as  were  socially  en- 
titled to  this  consideration.  The  most  vivid  impression 
which  her  present-day  descendants  retain  is  that  of  her 
fervent  devotion  to  the  Southern  cause.  She  carried  the 
spirit  of  secession  to  such  an  extreme  that  she  had  the 
gate  to  her  yard  painted  to  give  a  complete  presentment 
of  the  Confederate  Flag.  Walter  Page's  mother,  the 
granddaughter  of  this  determined  and  rebellious  lady, 
had  also  her  positive  quality,  but  in  a  somewhat  more 
subdued  form.  She  did  not  die  until  1897,  and  so  the 
recollection  of  her  is  fresh  and  vivid.  As  a  mature  woman 
she  was  undemonstrative  and  soft  spoken;  a  Methodist 
of  old-fashioned  Wesleyan  type,  she  dressed  with  a 
Quaker-like  simplicity,  her  brown  hair  brushed  flatly  down 
upon  a  finely  shaped  head  and  her  garments  destitute  of 
ruffles  or  ornamentation.  The  home  which  she  directed 
was  a  home  without  playing  cards  or  dancing  or  smok- 
ing or  wine-bibbing  or  other  worldly  frivolities,  yet  the 
memories  of  her  presence  which  Catherine  Page  has  left 
are  not  at  all  austere.  Duty  was  with  her  the  prime 
consideration  of  life,  and  fundamental  morals  the  first 
conceptions  which  she  instilled  in  her  children's  growing 
minds,  yet  she  had  a  quiet  sense  of  humour  and  a  real 
love  of  fun. 

She  had  also  strong  likes  and  dislikes,  and  was  not 
especially  hospitable  to  men  and  women  who  fell  under 
her  disapproval.  A  small  North  Carolina  town,  in  the 


8  THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

years  preceding  and  following  the  Civil  War,  was  not 
a  fruitful  soil  for  cultivating  an  interest  in  things  intel- 
lectual, yet  those  who  remember  Walter  Page's  mother  re- 
member her  always  with  a  book  in  her  hand.  She  would 
read  at  her  knitting  and  at  her  miscellaneous  household 
duties,  which  were  rather  arduous  in  the  straitened  days 
that  followed  the  war,  and  the  books  she  read  were  al- 
ways substantial  ones.  Perhaps  because  her  son  Walter 
was  in  delicate  health,  perhaps  because  his  early  tastes 
and  temperament  were  not  unlike  her  own,  perhaps  be- 
cause he  was  her  oldest  surviving  child,  the  fact  remains 
that,  of  a  family  of  eight,  he  was  generally  regarded  as 
the  child  with  whom  she  was  especially  sympathetic. 
The  picture  of  mother  and  son  in  those  early  days  is  an 
altogether  charming  one.  Page's  mother  was  only  twenty- 
four  when  he  was  born;  she  retained  her  youth  for  many 
years  after  that  event,  and  during  his  early  childhood,  in 
appearance  and  manner,  she  was  little  more  than  a  girl. 
When  Walter  was  a  small  boy,  he  and  his  mother  used  to 
take  long  walks  in  the  woods,  sometimes  spending  the 
entire  day,  fishing  along  the  brooks,  hunting  wild  flowers, 
now  and  then  pausing  while  the  mother  read  pages  of 
Dickens  or  of  Scott.  These  experiences  Page  never  for- 
got. Nearly  all  his  letters  to  his  mother — to  whom, 
even  in  his  busiest  days  in  New  York,  he  wrote  constantly 
— have  been  accidentally  destroyed,  but  a  few  scraps 
indicate  the  close  spiritual  bond  that  existed  between 
the  two.  Always  he  seemed  to  think  of  his  mother 
as  young.  Through  his  entire  life,  in  whatever  part 
of  the  world  he  might  be,  and  however  important 
was  the  work  in  which  he  might  be  engaged,  Page  never 
failed  to  write  her  a  long  and  affectionate  letter  at  Christ- 
mas. 

"Well,   I've  gossiped  a  night  or  two" — such  is  the 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  9 

conclusion  of  his  Christmas  letter  of  1893,  when  Page  was 
thirty -eight,  with  a  growing  family  of  his  own— "till 
I've  filled  the  paper — all  such  little  news  and  less  non- 
sense as  most  gossip  and  most  letters  are  made  of.  But 
it  is  for  you  to  read  between  the  lines.  That's  where  the 
love  lies,  dear  mother.  I  wish  you  were  here  Christmas; 
we  should  welcome  you  as  nobody  else  in  the  world  can 
be  welcomed.  But  wherever  you  are  and  though  all 
the  rest  have  the  joy  of  seeing  you,  which  is  denied  to  me, 
never  a  Christmas  comes  but  I  feel  as  near  you  as  I  did 
years  and  years  ago  when  we  were  young.  (In  those 
years  big  fish  bit  in  old  Wiley  Bancom's  pond  by  the  rail- 
road: they  must  have  been  two  inches  long!) — I  would 
give  a  year's  growth  to  have  the  pleasure  of  having  you 
here.  You  may  be  sure  that  every  one  of  my  children 
along  with  me  will  look  with  an  added  reverence  toward 
the  picture  on  the  wall  that  greets  me  every  morning, 
when  we  have  our  little  Christmas  frolics— the  picture 
that  little  Katharine  points  to  and  says  '  That's  my  grand- 
mudder.' — The  years,  as  they  come,  every  one,  deepen 
my  gratitude  to  you,  as  I  better  and  better  understand 
the  significance  of  fife  and  every  one  adds  to  an  affection 
that  was  never  small.  God  bless  you. 

"WALTER." 

Such  were  the  father  and  mother  of  Walter  Mines  Page; 
they  were  married  at  Fayetteville,  North  Carolina,  July  5, 
1849;  two  children  who  preceded  Walter  died  in  infancy. 
The  latter  was  born  at  Gary,  August  15,  1855.  Gary 
was  a  small  village  which  Frank  Page  had  created;  in 
honour  of  the  founder  it  was  for  several  years  known 
as  Page's  Station ;  the  father  himself  changed  the  name  to 
Gary,  as  a  tribute  to  a  temperance  orator  who  caused 
something  of  a  commotion  in  the  neighbourhood  in  the 


10         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

early  seventies.  Gary  was  not  then  much  of  a  town  and 
has  not  since  become  one;  but  it  was  placed  amid  the 
scene  of  important  historical  events.  Page's  home  was 
almost  the  last  stopping  place  of  Sherman's  army  on  its 
march  through  Georgia  and  the  Carolinas,  and  the  Con- 
federacy came  to  an  end,  with  Johnston's  surrender  of  the 
last  Confederate  Army,  at  Durham,  only  fifteen  miles  from 
Page's  home.  Walter,  a  boy  of  ten,  his  brother  Robert, 
aged  six,  and  the  negro  "companion"  Tance — who  figures 
as  Sam  in  the  extract  quoted  above — stood  at  the  second- 
story  window  and  watched  Sherman's  soldiers  pass  their 
house,  in  hot  pursuit  of  General  "Joe"  Wheeler's  cavaky. 
The  thing  that  most  astonished  the  children  was  the  vast 
size  of  the  army,  which  took  all  day  to  file  by  their  home. 
They  had  never  realized  that  either  of  the  fighting  forces 
could  embrace  such  great  numbers  of  men.  Nor  did  the 
behaviour  of  the  invading  troops  especially  endear  them  to 
their  unwilling  hosts.  Part  of  the  cavalry  encamped  in  the 
Page  yard ;  their  horses  ate  the  bark  off  the  mimosa  trees ; 
an  army  corps  built  its  campfires  under  the  great  oaks,  and 
cut  their  emblems  on  the  trunks ;  the  officers  took  posses- 
sion of  the  house,  a  colonel  making  his  headquarters  in  the 
parlour.  Several  looting  cavalrymen  ran  their  swords 
through  the  beds,  probably  looking  for  hidden  silver;  the 
hearth  was  torn  up  in  the  same  feverish  quest;  angry  at 
their  failure,  they  emptied  sacks  of  flour  and  scattered  their 
contents  in  the  bedrooms  and  on  the  stairs;  for  days  the 
flour,  intermingled  with  feathers  from  the  bayonetted 
beds,  formed  a  carpet  all  over  the  house.  It  is  there- 
fore perhaps  not  strange  that  the  feelings  which  Wal- 
ter entertained  for  Sherman's  "bummers,"  despite  his 
father's  Whig  principles,  were  those  of  most  Southern  com- 
munities. One  day  a  kindly  Northern  soldier,  sympathiz- 
ing with  the  boy  because  of  the  small  rations  left  for  the 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  11 

local  population,  invited  him  to  join  the  officers'  mess  at 
dinner.   Walter  drew  proudly  back. 
"I'll  starve  before  I'll  eat  with  the  Yankees,"  he  said. 

"I  slept  that  night  on  a  trundle  bed  by  my  mother's," 
Page  wrote  years  afterward,  describing  these  early 
scenes,  "for  her  room  was  the  only  room  left  for  the 
family,  and  we  had  all  lived  there  since  the  day  before. 
The  dining  room  and  the  kitchen  were  now  superfluous, 
because  there  was  nothing  more  to  cook  or  to  eat.  .  .  . 
A  week  or  more  after  the  army  corps  had  gone,  I  drove 
with  my  father  to  the  capital  one  day,  and  almost  every 
mile  of  the  journey  we  saw  a  blue  coat  or  a  gray  coat 
lying  by  the  road,  with  bones  or  hair  protruding — the 
unburied  and  the  forgotten  of  either  army.  Thus  I  had 
come  to  know  what  war  was,  and  death  by  violence  was 
among  the  first  deep  impressions  made  on  my  mind. 
My  emotions  must  have  been  violently  dealt  with  and 
my  sensibilities  blunted — or  sharpened?  Who  shall  say? 
The  wounded  and  the  starved  straggled  home  from  hos- 
pitals and  from  prisons.  There  was  old  Mr.  Sanford,  the 
shoemaker,  come  back  again,  with  a  body  so  thin  and  a 
step  so  uncertain  that  I  expected  to  see  him  fall  to  pieces. 
Mr.  Larkin  and  Joe  Tatum  went  on  crutches;  and  I  saw 
a  man  at  the  post-office  one  day  whose  cheek  and  ear  had 
been  torn  away  by  a  shell.  Even  when  Sam  and  I  sat 
on  the  river-bank  fishing,  and  ought  to  have  been  silent 
lest  the  fish  swim  away,  we  told  over  in  low  tones  the 
stories  that  we  had  heard  of  wounds  and  of  deaths  and  of 
battles. 

"But  there  was  the  cheerful  gentleness  of  my  mother 
to  draw  my  thoughts  to  different  things.  I  can  even  now 
recall  many  special  little  plans  that  she  made  to  keep  my 
mind  from  battles.  She  hid  the  military  cap  that  I  had 


12         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

worn.  She  bought  from  me  my  military  buttons  and  put 
them  away.  She  would  call  me  in  and  tell  me  pleasant 
stories  of  her  own  childhood.  She  would  put  down  her 
work  to  make  puzzles  with  me,  and  she  read  gentle 
books  to  me  and  kept  away  from  me  all  the  stories  of  the 
war  and  of  death  that  she  could.  Whatever  hardships 
befell  her  (and  they  must  have  been  many)  she  kept  a 
tender  manner  of  resignation  and  of  cheerful  patience. 

"After  a  while  the  neighbourhood  came  to  life  again. 
There  were  more  widows,  more  sonless  mothers,  more 
empty  sleeves  and  wooden  legs  than  anybody  there  had 
ever  seen  before.  But  the  mimosa  bloomed,  the  cotton  was 
planted  again,  and  the  peach  trees  blossomed;  and  the 
barnyard  and  the  stable  again  became  full  of  life.  For, 
when  the  army  marched  away,  they,  too,  were  as  silent 
as  an  old  battlefield.  The  last  hen  had  been  caught  under 
the  corn-crib  by  a  'Yankee'  soldier,  who  had  torn  his 
coat  in  this  brave  raid.  Aunt  Maria  told  Sam  that  all 
Yankees  were  chicken  thieves  whether  they  'brung 
freedom  or  no.' 

"Every  year  the  cotton  bloomed  and  ripened  and 
opened  white  to  the  sun;  for  the  ripening  of  the  cotton 
and  the  running  of  the  river  and  the  turning  of  the  mills 
make  the  thread  not  of  my  story  only  but  of  the  story  of 
our  Southern  land — of  its  institutions,  of  its  misfortunes 
and  of  its  place  in  the  economy  of  the  world ;  and  they  will 
make  the  main  threads  of  its  story,  I  am  sure,  so  long  as 
the  sun  shines  on  our  white  fields  and  the  rivers  run — a 
story  that  is  now  rushing  swiftly  into  a  happier  narrative 
of  a  broader  day.  The  same  women  who  had  guided  the 
spindles  in  war-time  were  again  at  their  tasks — they  at 
least  were  left;  but  the  machinery  was  now  old  and 
worked  ill.  Negro  men,  who  had  wandered  a  while 
looking  for  an  invisible  'freedom,'  came  back  and  went  to 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  13 

work  on  the  farm  from  force  of  habit.  They  now  re- 
ceived wages  and  bought  their  own  food.  That  was  the 
only  apparent  difference  that  freedom  had  brought  them. 
"My  Aunt  Katharine  came  from  the  city  for  a  visit, 
my  Cousin  Margaret  with  her.  Through  the  orchard,  out 
into  the  newly  ploughed  ground  beyond,  back  over  the 
lawn  which  was  itself  bravely  repairing  the  hurt  done  by 
horses'  hoofs  and  tent-poles,  and  under  the  oaks,  which 
bore  the  scars  of  camp-fires,  we  two  romped  and  played 
gentler  games  than  camp  and  battle.  One  afternoon,  as 
our  mothers  sat  on  the  piazza  and  saw  us  come  loaded 
with  apple-blossoms,  they  said  something  (so  I  afterward 
learned)  about  the  eternal  blooming  of  childhood  and  of 
Nature — how  sweet  the  early  summer  was  in  spite  of  the 
harrying  of  the  land  by  war ;  for  our  gorgeous  pageant  of 
the  seasons  came  on  as  if  the  earth  had  been  the  home  of 
unbroken  peace."1 

ii 

And  so  it  was  a  tragic  world  into  which  this  boy  Page 
had  been  born.  He  was  ten  years  old  when  the  Civil 
War  came  to  an  end,  and  his  early  life  was  therefore  cast 
in  a  desolate  country.  Like  all  of  his  neighbours,  Frank 
Page  had  been  ruined  by  the  war.  Both  the  Southern 
and  Northern  armies  had  passed  over  the  Page  territory ; 
compared  with  the  military  depredations  with  which 
Page  became  familiar  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  the 
Federal  troops  did  not  particularly  misbehave,  the  at- 
tacks on  hen  roosts  and  the  destruction  of  feather  beds 
representing  the  extreme  of  their  "atrocities";  but  no 
country  can  entertain  two  great  fighting  forces  without 
feeling  the  effects  for  a  prolonged  period.  Life  in  this 
part  of  North  Carolina  again  became  reduced  to  its 

Southerner,"  Chapter  I. 


14         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

fundamentals.  The  old  homesteads  and  the  Negro  huts 
were  still  left  standing,  and  their  interiors  were  for  the 
most  part  unharmed,  but  nearly  everything  else  had  dis- 
appeared. Horses,  cattle,  hogs,  livestock  of  all  kinds  had 
vanished  before  the  advancing  hosts  of  hungry  soldiers; 
and  there  was  one  thing  which  was  even  more  a  rarity 
than  these.  That  was  money.  Confederate  veterans 
went  around  in  their  faded  gray  uniforms,  not  only  be- 
cause they  loved  them,  but  because  they  did  not  have  the 
wherewithal  to  buy  new  wardrobes.  Judges,  planters, 
and  other  dignified  members  of  the  community  became 
hack  drivers  from  the  necessity  of  picking  up  a  few  small 
coins.  Page's  father  was  more  fortunate  than  the  rest, 
for  he  had  one  asset  with  which  to  accumulate  a  little 
liquid  capital;  he  possessed  a  fine  peach  orchard,  which 
was  particularly  productive  in  the  summer  of  1865,  and 
the  Northern  soldiers,  who  drew  their  pay  in  money  that 
had  real  value,  developed  a  weakness  for  the  fruit.  Wal- 
ter Page,  a  boy  of  ten,  used  to  take  his  peaches  to  Raleigh, 
and  sell  them  to  the  "invader";  although  he  still  dis- 
dained having  companionable  relations  with  the  enemy,  he 
was  not  above  meeting  them  on  a  business  footing;  and 
the  greenbacks  and  silver  coin  obtained  in  this  way  laid  a 
new  basis  for  the  family  fortunes. 

Despite  this  happy  windfall,  life  for  the  next  few  years 
proved  an  arduous  affair.  The  horrors  of  reconstruction 
which  followed  the  war  were  more  agonizing  than  the 
war  itself.  Page's  keenest  enthusiasm  in  after  life  was 
democracy,  in  its  several  manifestations;  but  the  form 
in  which  democracy  first  unrolled  before  his  astonished 
eyes  was  a  phase  that  could  hardly  inspire  much  en- 
thusiasm. Misguided  sentimentalists  and  more  malicious 
politicians  in  the  North  had  suddenly  endowed  the  Negro 
with  the  ballot.  In  practically  all  Southern  States  that 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  15 

meant  government  by  Negroes — or  what  was  even  worse, 
government  by  a  combination  of  Negroes  and  the  most 
vicious  white  elements,  including  that  which  was  native  to 
the  soil  and  that  which  had  imported  itself  from  the  North 
for  this  particular  purpose.  Thus  the  political  vocabu- 
lary of  Page's  formative  years  consisted  chiefly  of  such 
words  as  "scalawag,"  "carpet  bagger,"  "regulator," 
"Union  League,"  "Ku  Klux  Klan,"  and  the  like.  The 
resulting  confusion,  political,  social,  and  economic,  did  not 
completely  amount  to  the  destruction  of  a  civilization, 
for  underneath  it  all  the  old  sleepy  ante-bellum  South 
still  maintained  its  existence  almost  unchanged.  The 
two  most  conspicuous  and  contrasting  figures  were  the 
Confederate  veteran  walking  around  in  a  sleeveless  coat 
and  the  sharp-featured  New  England  school  mar'm, 
armed  with  that  spelling  book  which  was  overnight  to 
change  the  African  from  a  genial  barbarian  into  an  intel- 
ligent and  conscientious  social  unit;  but  more  persistent 
than  these  forces  was  that  old  dreamy,  "unprogressive" 
Southland — the  same  country  that  Page  himself  de- 
scribed in  an  article  on  "An  Old  Southern  Borough" 
which,  as  a  young  man,  he  contributed  to  the  Atlantic 
Monthly.  It  was  still  the  country  where  the  "old- 
fashioned  gentleman"  was  the  controlling  social  influence, 
where  a  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek  still  made  its 
possessor  a  person  of  consideration,  where  Emerson  was 
a  "Yankee  philosopher"  and  therefore  not  important, 
where  Shakespeare  and  Milton  were  looked  upon  almost 
as  contemporary  authors,  where  the  Church  and  politics 
and  the  matrimonial  history  of  friends  and  relatives 
formed  the  staple  of  conversation,  and  where  a  strong 
prejudice  still  existed  against  anything  that  resembled 
popular  education.  In  the  absence  of  more  substantial 
employment,  stump  speaking,  especially  eloquent  in  praise 


16         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

of  the  South  and  its  achievements  in  war,  had  become 
the  leading  industry. 

"Wat"  Page — he  is  still  known  by  this  name  in  his 
old  home — was  a  tall,  rangy,  curly-headed  boy,  with 
brown  hair  and  brown  eyes,  fond  of  fishing  and  hunting, 
not  especially  robust,  but  conspicuously  alert  and  vital. 
Such  of  his  old  playmates  as  survive  recall  chiefly  his 
keenness  of  observation,  his  contagious  laughter,  his 
devotion  to  reading  and  to  talk.  He  was  also  given  to 
taking  long  walks  in  the  woods,  frequently  with  the  soli- 
tary companionship  of  a  book.  Indeed,  his  extremely 
efficient  family  regarded  him  as  a  dreamer  and  were  not 
entirely  clear  as  to  what  purpose  he  was  destined  to  serve 
in  a  community  which,  above  all,  demanded  practical 
men.  Such  elementary  schools  as  North  Carolina  pos- 
sessed had  vanished  in  the  war ;  the  prevailing  custom  was 
for  the  better-conditioned  families  to  join  forces  and 
engage  a  teacher  for  their  assembled  children.  It  was 
in  such  a  primary  school  in  Gary  that  Page  learned  the 
elementary  branches,  though  his  mother  herself  taught 
him  to  read  and  write.  The  boy  showed  such  aptitude 
in  his  studies  that  his  mother  began  to  hope,  though  in 
no  aggressive  fashion,  that  he  might  some  day  become  a 
Methodist  clergyman ;  she  had  given  him  his  middle  name, 
"Hines, "  in  honour  of  her  favourite  preacher — a  kins- 
man. At  the  age  of  twelve  Page  was  transferred  to  the 
Bingham  School,  then  located  at  Mebane.  This  was  the 
Eton  of  North  Carolina,  from  both  a  social  and  an  edu- 
cational standpoint.  It  was  a  military  school;  the  boys 
all  dressed  in  gray  uniforms  built  on  the  plan  of  the  Con- 
federate army;  the  hero  constantly  paraded  before  their 
imaginations  was  Robert  E.  Lee ;  discipline  was  rigidly  mil- 
itary ;  more  important,  a  high  standard  of  honour  was  in- 
sisted upon.  There  was  one  thing  a  boy  could  not  do  at 


A  RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  17 

Bingham  and  remain  in  the  school;  that  was  to  cheat  in 
class-rooms  or  at  examinations.  For  this  offence  no  second 
chance  was  given.  "I  cannot  argue  the  subject,"  Page 
,  quotes  Colonel  Bingham  saying  to  the  distracted  parent 
whose  son  had  been  dismissed  on  this  charge,  and  who 
was  begging  for  his  reinstatement.  "In  fact,  I  have  no 
power  to  reinstate  your  boy.  I  could  not  keep  the  honour 
of  the  school — I  could  not  even  keep  the  boys,  if  he  were 
to  return.  They  would  appeal  to  their  parents  and  most 
of  them  would  be  called  home.  They  are  the  flower  of 
the  South,  Sir!"  And  the  social  standards  that  con- 
trolled the  thinking  of  the  South  for  so  many  years  after 
the  war  were  strongly  entrenched.  "The  son  of  a  Con- 
federate general,"  Page  writes,  "if  he  were  at  all  a  decent 
fellow,  had,  of  course,  a  higher  social  rank  at  the  Bingham 
School  than  the  son  of  a  colonel.  There  was  some  dif- 
ficulty in  deciding  the  exact  rank  of  a  judge  or  a  governor, 
as  a  father ;  but  the  son  of  a  preacher  had  a  fair  chance  of 
a  good  social  rating,  especially  of  an  Episcopalian  clergy- 
man. A  Presbyterian  preacher  came  next  in  rank.  I 
at  first  was  at  a  social  disadvantage.  My  father  had  been 
a  Methodist — that  was  bad  enough;  but  he  had  had  no 
military  title  at  all.  If  it  had  become  known  among  the 
boys  that  he  had  been  a  '  Union  man ' — I  used  to  shudder 
at  the  suspicion  in  which  I  should  be  held.  And  the 
fact  that  my  father  had  held  no  military  title  did  at  last 
become  known!" 

A  single  episode  discloses  that  Page  maintained  his 
respect  for  the  Bingham  School  to  the  end.  In  March, 
1918,  as  American  Ambassador,  he  went  up  to  Harrow 
and  gave  an  informal  talk  to  the  boys  on  the  United 
States.  His  hosts  were  so  pleased  that  two  prizes  were 
established  to  commemorate  his  visit.  One  was  for  an 
essay  by  Harrow  boys  on  the  subject:  "The  Drawing 


18         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Together  of  America  and  Great  Britain  by  Common 
Devotion  to  a  Great  Cause."  A  similar  prize  on  the  same 
subject  was  offered  to  the  boys  of  some  American  school, 
and  Page  was  asked  to  select  the  recipient.  He  promptly 
named  his  old  Bingham  School  in  North  Carolina. 

It  was  at  Bingham  that  Page  gained  his  first  knowledge 
of  Greek,  Latin,  and  mathematics,  and  he  was  an  outstand- 
ing student  in  all  three  subjects.  He  had  no  particular 
liking  for  mathematics,  but  he  could  never  understand 
why  any  one  should  find  this  branch  of  learning  difficult ; 
he  mastered  it  with  the  utmost  ease  and  always  stood 
high.  In  two  or  three  years  he  had  absorbed  everything 
that  Bingham  could  offer  and  was  ready  for  the  next 
step.  But  political  conditions  in  North  Carolina  now  had 
their  influence  upon  Page's  educational  plans.  Under 
ordinary  conditions  he  would  have  entered  the  State 
University  at  Chapel  Hill;  it  had  been  a  great  head- 
quarters in  ante-bellum  days  for  the  prosperous  families 
of  the  South.  But  by  the  time  that  Page  was  ready  to  go 
to  college  the  University  had  fallen  upon  evil  days.  The 
forces  which  then  ruled  the  state,  acting  in  accordance 
with  the  new  principles  of  racial  equality,  had  opened  the 
doors  of  this,  one  of  the  most  aristocratic  of  Southern  in- 
stitutions, to  Negroes.  The  consequences  may  be  easily 
imagined.  The  newly  enfranchised  blacks  showed  no  in- 
clination for  the  groves  of  Academe,  and  not  a  single 
representative  of  the  race  applied  for  matriculation. 
The  outraged  white  population  turned  its  back  upon  this 
new  type  of  coeducation;  in  the  autumn  of  1872  not  a 
solitary  white  boy  made  his  appearance.  The  old  uni- 
versity therefore  closed  its  doors  for  lack  of  students  and 
for  the  next  few  years  it  became  a  pitiable  victim  to 
the  worst  vices  of  the  reconstruction  era.  Politicians 
were  awarded  the  presidency  and  the  professorships  as 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  19 

political  pap,  and  the  resources  of  the  place,  in  money  and 
books,  were  scattered  to  the  wind.  Page  had  therefore 
to  find  his  education  elsewhere.  The  deep  religious  feel- 
ings of  his  family  quickly  settled  this  point.  The  young 
man  promptly  betook  himself  to  the  backwoods  of  North 
Carolina  and  knocked  at  the  doors  of  Trinity  College, 
a  Methodist  Institution  then  located  in  Randolph  County. 
Trinity  has  since  changed  its  abiding  place  to  Durham 
and  has  been  transformed  into  one  of  the  largest  and  most 
successful  colleges  of  the  new  South;  but  in  those  days 
a  famous  Methodist  divine  and  journalist  described  it 
as  "a  college  with  a  few  buildings  that  look  like  tobacco 
barns  and  a  few  teachers  that  look  as  though  they  ought 
to  be  worming  tobacco."  Page  spent  something  more 
than  a  year  at  Trinity,  entering  in  the  autumn  of  1871, 
and  leaving  in  December,  1872.  A  few  letters,  written 
from  this  place,  are  scarcely  more  complimentary  than 
the  judgment  passed  above.  They  show  that  the  young 
man  was  very  unhappy.  One  long  letter  to  his  mother 
is  nothing  but  a  boyish  diatribe  against  the  place.  "  I  do 
not  care  a  horse  apple  for  Trinity's  distinction,"  he  writes, 
and  then  he  gives  the  reasons  for  this  juvenile  contempt. 
His  first  report,  he  says,  will  soon  reach  home;  he  warns 
his  mother  that  it  will  be  unfavourable,  and  he  explains 
that  this  bad  showing  is  the  result  of  a  deliberate  plot. 
The  boys  who  obtain  high  marks,  Page  declares,  secure 
them  usually  by  cheating  or  through  the  partisanship  of 
the  professors;  a  high  grade  therefore  really  means  that 
the  recipient  is  either  a  humbug  or  a  bootlicker.  Page 
had  therefore  attempted  to  keep  his  reputation  unsullied 
by  aiming  at  a  low  academic  record!  The  report  on  that 
three  months'  work,  which  still  survives,  discloses  that 
Page's  conspiracy  against  himself  did  not  succeed,  for  his 
marks  are  all  high.  "Be  sure  to  send  him  back"  is  the 


20         THE   LIFE!   AND   LETTERS  OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

annotation  on  this  document,  indicating  that  Page  had 
made  a  better  impression  on  Trinity  than  Trinity  had 
made  on  Page. 

But  the  rebellious  young  man  did  not  return.  After 
Christmas,  1872,  his  schoolboy  letters  reveal  him  at 
Randolph-Macon  College  in  Ashland,  Va.  Here  again 
the  atmosphere  is  Methodistical,  but  of  a  somewhat  more 
genial  type.  "It  was  at  Ashland  that  I  first  began  to 
unfold,"  said  Page  afterward.  "Dear  old  Ashland!" 
Dr.  Duncan,  the  President,  was  a  clergyman  whose  pul- 
pit oratory  is  still  a  tradition  in  the  South,  but,  in  ad- 
dition to  his  religious  exaltation,  he  was  an  exceedingly 
lovable,  companionable,  and  stimulating  human  being. 
Certainly  there  was  no  lack  of  the  religious  impulse. 
"We  have  a  preacher  president,"  Page  writes  his  mother, 
"a  preacher  secretary,  a  preacher  chaplain,  and  a  dozen 
preacher  students  and  three  or  more  preachers  are  living 
here  and  twenty-five  or  thirty  yet-to-be  preachers  in 
college!"  In  this  latter  class  Page  evidently  places 
himself;  at  least  he  gravely  writes  his  mother — he  wras 
now  eighteen — that  he  had  definitely  made  up  his  mind 
to  enter  the  Methodist  ministry.  He  had  a  close  friend- 
Wilbur  Fisk  Tillett — who  cherished  similar  ambitions, 
and  Page  one  day  surprised  Tillett  by  suggesting  that,  at 
the  approaching  Methodist  Conference,  they  apply  for 
licensing  as  "local  preachers"  for  the  next  summer.  His 
friend  dissuaded  him,  however,  and  henceforth  Page 
concentrated  on  more  worldly  studies.  In  many  ways 
he  was  the  life  of  the  undergraduate  body.  His  desire 
for  an  immediate  theological  campaign  was  merely  that 
passion  for  doing  things  and  for  self-expression  which 
were  always  conspicuous  traits.  His  intense  ambition 
as  a  boy  is  still  remembered  in  this  sleepy  little  village. 
He  read  every  book  in  the  sparse  college  library ;  he  talked 


Allison  Francis  Page  (1824-1899),  father  of  Walter  H.  Page 


Catherine  Raboteau  Page  (1831-1897),  mother  of 
Walter  H.  Page 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  21 

to  his  college  mates  and  his  professors  on  every  imaginable 
subject;  he  led  his  associates  in  the  miniature  parliament 
— the  Franklin  Debating  Society — to  which  he  belonged; 
he  wrote  prose  and  verse  at  an  astonishing  rate;  he 
explored  the  country  for  miles  around,  making  frequent 
pilgrimages  to  the  birthplace  of  Henry  Clay,  which  is  the 
chief  historical  glory  of  Ashland,  and  to  that  Hanover 
Court  House  which  was  the  scene  of  the  oratorical  tri- 
umph of  Patrick  Henry;  he  flirted  with  the  pretty  girls 
in  the  village,  and  even  had  two  half-serious  love  affairs 
in  rapid  succession ;  he  slept  upon  a  hard  mattress  at  night 
and  imbibed  more  than  the  usual  allotment  of  Greek, 
Latin,  and  mathematics  in  the  daytime.  One  year  he 
captured  the  Greek  prize  and  the  next  the  Sutherlin 
medal  for  oratory.  With  a  fellow  classicist  he  entered 
into  a  solemn  compact  to  hold  all  their  conversation, 
even  on  the  most  trivial  topics,  in  Latin,  with  heavy 
penalties  for  careless  lapses  into  English.  Probably  the 
linguistic  result  would  have  astonished  Quintilian,  but 
the  experiment  at  least  had  a  certain  influence  in  im- 
proving the  young  man's  Latinity.  Another  favourite 
dissipation  was  that  of  translating  English  masterpieces 
into  the  ancient  tongue ;  there  still  survives  among  Page's 
early  papers  a  copy  of  Bryant's  "Waterfowl"  done  into 
Latin  iambics.  As  to  Page's  personal  appearance,  a 
designation  coined  by  a  fellow  student  who  afterward  be- 
came a  famous  editor  gives  the  suggestion  of  a  portrait. 
He  called  him  one  of  the  "seven  slabs"  of  the  college. 
And,  as  always,  the  adjectives  which  his  contemporaries 
chiefly  use  in  describing  Page  are  "alert"  and  "positive." 
But  Randolph-Macon  did  one  great  thing  for  Page. 
Like  many  small  struggling  Southern  colleges  it  managed 
to  assemble  several  instructors  of  real  mental  distinction. 
And  at  the  time  of  Page's  undergraduate  life  it  possessed 


22         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

at  least  one  great  teacher.  This  was  Thomas  R.  Price, 
afterward  Professor  of  Greek  at  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia and  Professor  of  English  at  Columbia  University  in 
New  York.  Professor  Price  took  one  forward  step  that 
has  given  him  a  permanent  fame  in  the  history  of  Southern 
education.  He  found  that  the  greatest  stumbling  block 
to  teaching  Greek  was  not  the  conditional  mood,  but  the 
fact  that  his  hopeful  charges  were  not  sufficiently  familiar 
with  their  mother  tongue.  The  prayer  that  was  always 
on  Price's  lips,  and  the  one  with  which  he  made  his  boys 
most  familiar,  was  that  of  a  wise  old  Greek:  "0  Great 
Apollo,  send  down  the  reviving  rain  upon  our  fields;  pre- 
serve our  flocks;  ward  off  our  enemies;  and — build  up  our 
speech!"  "It  is  irrational,"  he  said,  "absurd,  almost 
criminal,  to  expect  a  young  man,  whose  knowledge  of 
English  words  and  construction  is  scant  and  inexact,  to 
put  into  English  a  difficult  thought  of  Plato  or  an  involved 
period  of  Cicero."  Above  all,  it  will  be  observed,  Price's 
intellectual  enthusiasm  was  the  ancient  tongue.  A 
present-day  argument  for  learning  Greek  and  Latin  is 
that  thereby  we  improve  our  English;  but  Thomas  R. 
Price  advocated  the  teaching  of  English  so  that  we  might 
better  understand  the  dead  languages.  To-day  every 
great  American  educational  institution  has  vast  resources 
for  teaching  English  literature;  even  in  1876,  most 
American  universities  had  their  professors  of  English; 
but  Price  insisted  on  placing  English  on  exactly  the  same 
footing  as  Greek  and  Latin.  He  himself  became  head  of 
the  new  English  school  at  Randolph-Macon ;  and  Page 
himself  at  once  became  the  favourite  pupil.  This  dis- 
tinguished scholar — a  fine  figure  with  an  imperial  beard 
that  suggested  the  Confederate  officer — used  to  have 
Page  to  tea  at  least  twice  a  week  and  at  these  meetings 
the  young  man  was  first  introduced  in  an  understanding 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  23 

way  to  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Wordsworth,  Tennyson, 
and  the  other  writers  who  became  the  literary  passions 
of  his  maturer  life.  And  Price  did  even  more  for  Page; 
he  passed  him  on  to  another  place  and  to  another  teacher 
who  extended  his  horizon.  Up  to  the  autumn  of  1876 
Page  had  never  gone  farther  North  than  Ashland ;  he  was 
still  a  Southern  boy,  speaking  with  the  Southern  drawl, 
living  exclusively  the  thoughts  and  even  the  prejudices 
of  the  South.  His  family's  broad-minded  attitude  had 
prevented  him  from  acquiring  a  too  restricted  view  of  cer- 
tain problems  that  were  then  vexing  both  sections  of  the 
country ;  however,  his  outlook  was  still  a  limited  one,  as  his 
youthful  correspondence  shows.  But  in  October  of  the 
centennial  year  a  great  prospect  opened  before  him. 

in 

Two  or  three  years  previously  an  eccentric  merchant 
named  Johns  Hopkins  had  died,  leaving  the  larger  part 
of  his  fortune  to  found  a  college  or  university  in 
Baltimore.  Johns  Hopkins  was  not  an  educated  man 
himself  and  his  conception  of  a  new  college  did  not 
extend  beyond  creating  something  in  the  nature  of  a 
Yale  or  Harvard  in  Maryland.  By  a  lucky  chance,  how- 
ever, a  Yale  graduate  who  was  then  the  President  of 
the  University  of  California,  Daniel  Coit  Gilman,  was 
invited  to  come  to  Baltimore  and  discuss  with  the  trustees 
his  availability  for  the  headship  of  the  new  institution. 
Dr.  Gilman  promptly  informed  his  prospective  employers 
that  he  would  have  no  interest  in  associating  himself  with 
a  new  American  college  built  upon  the  lines  of  those  which 
then  existed.  Such  a  foundation  would  merely  be  a  du- 
plication of  work  already  well  done  elsewhere  and  therefore 
a  waste  of  money  and  effort.  He  proposed  that  this 
large  endowment  should  be  used,  not  for  the  erection  of 


24         THE  LIFE   AND   LETTERS  OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

expensive  architecture,  but  primarily  for  seeking  out,  in 
all  parts  of  the  world,  the  best  professorial  brains  in  certain 
approved  branches  of  learning.  In  the  same  spirit  he 
suggested  that  a  similarly  selective  process  be  adopted  in 
the  choice  of  students:  that  only  those  American  boys 
who  had  displayed  exceptional  promise  should  be  admitted 
and  that  part  of  the  university  funds  should  be  used  to 
pay  the  expenses  of  twenty  young  men  who,  in  under- 
graduate work  at  other  colleges,  stood  head  and  shoulders 
above  their  contemporaries.  The  bringing  together  of 
these  two  sets  of  brains  for  graduate  study  would  con- 
stitute the  new  university.  A  few  rooms  in  the  nearest 
dwelling  house  would  suffice  for  headquarters.  Dr.  Gil- 
man's  scheme  was  approved ;  he  became  President  on  these 
terms;  he  gathered  his  faculty  not  only  in  the  United 
States  but  in  England,  and  he  collected  his  first  body  of 
students,  especially  his  first  twenty  fellows,  with  the  same 
minute  care. 

It  seems  almost  a  miracle  that  an  inexperienced  youth 
in  a  little  Methodist  college  in  Virginia  should  have  been 
chosen  as  one  of  these  first  twenty  fellows,  and  it  is  a  suf- 
ficient tribute  to  the  impression  that  Page  must  have 
made  upon  all  who  met  him  that  he  should  have  won  this 
great  academic  distinction.  He  was  only  twenty-one  at 
the  time — the  youngest  of  a  group  nearly  every  member 
of  which  became  distinguished  in  after  life.  He  won  a 
Fellowship  in  Greek.  This  in  itself  was  a  great  good 
fortune;  even  greater  was  the  fact  that  his  new  life 
brought  him  into  immediate  contact  with  a  scholar  of 
great  genius  and  lovableness.  Someone  has  said  that 
America  has  produced  four  scholars  of  the  very  first 
rank — Agassiz  in  natural  science,  Whitney  in  philology, 
Willard  Gibbs  in  physics,  and  Gildersleeve  in  Greek.  It 
was  the  last  of  these  who  now  took  Walter  Page  in  charge. 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  25 

The  atmosphere  of  Johns  Hopkins  was  quite  different 
from  anything  which  the  young  man  had  previously 
known.  The  university  gave  a  great  shock  to  that  part 
of  the  American  community  with  which  Page  had  spent 
his  life  by  beginning  its  first  session  in  October,  1876, 
without  an  opening  prayer.  Instead  Thomas  H.  Huxley 
was  invited  from  England  to  deliver  a  scientific  address — 
an  address  which  now  has  an  honoured  place  in  his  col- 
lected works.  The  absence  of  prayer  and  the  presence 
of  so  audacious  a  Darwinian  as  Huxley  caused  a  tre- 
mendous excitement  in  the  public  prints,  the  religious 
press,  and  the  evangelical  pulpit.  In  the  minds  of  Oilman 
and  his  abettors,  however,  all  this  was  intended  to  em- 
phasize the  fact  that  Johns  Hopkins  was  a  real  university, 
in  which  the  unbiased  truth  was  to  be  the  only  aim.  And 
certainly  this  was  the  spirit  of  the  institution.  "Gentle- 
men, you  must  light  your  own  torch,"  was  the  admonition 
of  President  Gilman,  in  his  welcoming  address  to  his 
twenty  fellows;  intellectual  independence,  freedom  from 
the  trammels  of  tradition,  were  thus  to  be  the  directing 
ideas.  One  of  Page's  associates  was  Josiah  Royce,  who 
afterward  had  a  distinguished  career  in  philosophy  at 
Harvard.  "The  beginnings  of  Johns  Hopkins,"  he  after- 
ward wrote,  "was  a  dawn  wherein  it  was  bliss  to  be  alive. 
The  air  was  full  of  noteworthy  work  done  by  the  older 
men  of  the  place  and  of  hopes  that  one  might  find  a  way  to 
get  a  little  working  power  one's  self.  One  longed  to  be 
a  doer  of  the  word,  not  a  hearer  only,  a  creator  of  his 
own  infinitesimal  fraction  of  the  product,  bound  in  God's 
name  to  produce  when  the  time  came." 

A  choice  group  of  five  aspiring  Grecians,  of  whom  Page 
was  one,  periodically  gathered  around  a  long  pine  table 
in  a  second-story  room  of  an  old  dwelling  house  on  How- 
ard Street,  with  Professor  Gildersleeve  at  the  head.  The 


26         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

process  of  teaching  was  thus  the  intimate  contact  of 
mind  with  mind.  Here  in  the  course  of  nearly  two  years' 
residence,  Page  was  led  by  Professor  Gildersleeve  into 
the  closest  communion  with  the  great  minds  of  the  an- 
cient world  and  gained  that  intimate  knowledge  of  their 
written  word  which  was  the  basis  of  his  mental  equip- 
ment. '*  Professor  Gildersleeve,  splendid  scholar  that  he 
is!"  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in  North  Carolina.  "He  makes 
me  grow  wonderfully.  When  I  have  a  chance  to  enjoy 
^Eschylus  as  I  have  now,  I  go  to  work  on  those  immortal 
pieces  with  a  pleasure  that  swallows  up  everything."  To 
the  extent  that  Gildersleeve  opened  up  the  literary  treas- 
ures of  the  past — and  no  man  had  a  greater  appreciation 
of  his  favourite  authors  than  this  fine  humanist — Page's 
life  was  one  of  unalloyed  delight.  But  there  was  another 
side  to  the  picture.  This  little  company  of  scholars  was 
composed  of  men  who  aspired  to  no  ordinary  knowledge 
of  Greek ;  they  expected  to  devote  their  entire  lives  to  the 
subject,  to  edit  Greek  texts,  and  to  hold  Greek  chairs 
at  the  leading  American  universities.  Such,  indeed,  has 
been  the  career  of  nearly  all  members  of  the  group.  The 
Greek  tragedies  were  therefore  read  for  other  things  than 
their  stylistic  and  dramatic  values.  The  sons  of  Ger- 
mania  then  exercised  a  profound  influence  on  American 
education;  Professor  Gildersleeve  himself  was  a  graduate 
of  Gottingen,  and  the  necessity  of  "settling  hoti's  busi- 
ness" was  strong  in  his  seminar.  Gildersleeve  was  a 
writer  of  English  who  developed  real  style;  as  a  Greek 
scholar,  his  fame  rests  chiefly  upon  his  work  in  the  field 
of  historical  syntax.  He  assumed  that  his  students  could 
read  Greek  as  easily  as  they  could  read  French,  and  the 
really  important  tasks  he  set  them  had  to  do  with  the 
most  abstruse  fields  of  philology.  For  work  of  this  kind 
Page  had  little  interest  and  less  inclination.  When  Pro- 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  27 

fessor  Gildersleeve  would  assign  him  the  adverb  vptv, 
and  direct  him  to  study  the  peculiarities  of  its  use  from 
Homer  down  to  the  Byzantine  writers,  he  really  found 
himself  in  pretty  deep  waters.  Was  it  conceivable  that  a 
man  could  spend  a  lifetime  in  an  occupation  of  this  kind? 
By  pursuing  such  studies  Gildersleeve  and  his  most  ad- 
vanced pupils  uncovered  many  new  facts  about  the 
language  and  even  found  hitherto  unsuspected  beauties; 
but  Page's  letters  show  that  this  sort  of  effort  was  ex- 
tremely uncongenial.  He  fulminates  against  the  "gram- 
marians" and  begins  to  think  that  perhaps,  after  all,  a 
career  of  erudite  scholarship  is  not  the  ideal  existence. 
"Learn  to  look  on  me  as  a  Greek  drudge,"  he  writes, 
"somewhere  pounding  into  men  and  boys  a  faint  hint  of 
the  beauty  of  old  Greekdom.  That's  most  probably  what 
I  shall  come  to  before  many  years.  I  am  sure  that  I 
have  mistaken  my  lifework,  if  I  consider  Greek  my  life- 
work.  In  truth  at  times  I  am  tempted  to  throw  the  whole 
thing  away.  .  .  .  But  without  a  home  feeling  in 
Greek  literature  no  man  can  lay  claim  to  high  culture." 
So  he  would  keep  at  it  for  three  or  four  years  and  "then 
leave  it  as  a  man's  work."  Despite  these  despairing 
words  Page  acquired  a  living  knowledge  of  Greek  that 
was  one  of  his  choicest  possessions  through  life.  That 
he  made  a  greater  success  than  his  self-depreciation  would 
imply  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  his  Fellowship  was  re- 
newed for  the  next  year. 

But  the  truth  is  that  the  world  was  tugging  at  Page 
more  insistently  than  the  cloister.  "Speaking  grammat- 
ically," writes  Prof.  E.  G.  Sihler,  one  of  Page's  fellow 
students  of  that  time,  in  his  "Confessions  and  Convictions 
of  a  Classicist,"  "Page  was  interested  in  that  one  of  the 
main  tenses  which  we  call  the  Present."  In  his  after 
life,  amid  all  the  excitements  of  journalism,  Page  could 


28         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

take  a  brief  vacation  and  spend  it  with  Ulysses  by  the 
sea;  but  actuality  and  human  activity  charmed  him  even 
more  than  did  the  heroes  of  the  ancient  world.  He 
went  somewhat  into  Baltimore  society,  but  not  ex- 
tensively; he  joined  a  club  whose  membership  comprised 
the  leading  intellectual  men  of  the  town;  probably  his 
most  congenial  associations,  however,  came  of  the  Satur- 
day night  meetings  of  the  fellows  in  Hopkins  Hall,  where, 
over  pipes  and  steins  of  beer,  they  passed  in  review  all 
the  questions  of  the  day.  Page  was  still  the  Southern 
boy,  with  the  strange  notions  about  the  North  and 
Northern  people  which  were  the  inheritance  of  many 
years'  misunderstandings.  He  writes  of  one  fellow  stu- 
dent to  whom  he  had  taken  a  liking.  "He  is  that  rare 
thing,"  he  says,  "a  Yankee  Christian  gentleman."  He 
particularly  dislikes  one  of  his  instructors,  but,  as  he  ex- 
plains, he  is  "a  native  of  Connecticut,  and  Connecticut,  I 
suppose,  is  capable  of  producing  any  unholy  human  phe- 
nomenon." Speaking  of  a  beautiful  and  well  mannered 
Greek  girl  whom  he  had  met,  he  says:  "The  little  creature 
might  be  taken  for  a  Southern  girl,  but  never  for  a  Yankee. 
She  has  an  easy  manner  and  even  an  air  of  gentility  about 
her  that  doesn't  appear  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  Line. 
Indeed,  however  much  the  Southern  race  (I  say  race  in- 
tentionally: Yankeedom  is  the  home  of  another  race 
from  us)  however  much  the  Southern  race  owes  its 
strength  to  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  it  owes  its  beauty  and 
gracefulness  to  the  Southern  climate  and  culture.  Who 
says  that  we  are  not  an  improvement  on  the  English? 
An  improvement  in  a  happy  combination  of  mental  graces 
and  Saxon  force?"  This  sort  of  thing  is  especially  enter- 
taining in  the  youthful  Page,  for  it  is  precisely  against 
this  kind  of  complacency  that,  as  a  mature  man,  he 
directed  his  choicest  ridicule.  As  an  editor  and  writer 


A   RECONSTRUCTION    BOYHOOD  29 

his  energies  were  devoted  to  reconciling  North  and  South, 
and  Johns  Hopkins  itself  had  much  to  do  with  opening 
his  eyes.  Its  young  men  and  its  professors  were  gathered 
from  all  parts  of  the  country ;  a  student,  if  his  mind  was 
awake,  learned  more  than  Greek  and  mathematics;  he 
learned  much  about  that  far-flung  nation  known  as  the 
United  States. 

And  Page  did  not  confine  his  work  exclusively  to  the 
curriculum.  He  writes  that  he  is  regularly  attending 
a  German  Sunday  School,  not,  however,  from  religious 
motives,  but  from  a  desire  to  improve  his  colloquial 
German.  "Is  this  courting  the  Devil  for  knowledge?" 
he  asks.  And  all  this  time  he  was  engaging  in  a  delightful 
correspondence — from  which  these  quotations  are  taken 
— with  a  young  woman  in  North  Carolina,  his  cousin. 
About  this  time  this  cousin  began  spending  her  summers 
in  the  Page  home  at  Gary ;  her  great  interest  in  books  made 
the  two  young  people  good  friends  and  companions.  It  was 
she  who  first  introduced  Page  to  certain  Southern  writers, 
especially  Timrod  and  Sidney  Lanier,  and,  when  Page 
left  for  Johns  Hopkins,  the  two  entered  into  a  compact 
for  a  systematic  reading  and  study  of  the  English  poets. 
According  to  this  plan,  certain  parts  of  Tennyson  or 
Chaucer  would  be  set  aside  for  a  particular  week's  read- 
ing ;  then  both  would  write  the  impressions  gained  and  the 
criticisms  which  they  assumed  to  make,  and  send  the 
product  to  the  other.  The  plan  was  carried  out  more 
faithfully  than  is  usually  the  case  in  such  arrangements ;  a 
large  number  of  Page's  letters  survive  and  give  a  complete 
history  of  his  mental  progress.  There  are  lengthy  dis- 
quisitions on  Wordsworth,  Browning,  Byron,  Shelley, 
Matthew  Arnold,  and  the  like.  These  letters  also  show 
that  Page,  as  a  relaxation  from  Greek  roots  and  syntax, 
was  indulging  in  poetic  flights  of  his  own;  his  efforts,  which 


30         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

he  encloses  in  his  letters,  are  mainly  imitations  of  the 
particular  poet  in  whom  he  was  at  the  moment  interested. 
This  correspondence  also  takes  Page  to  Germany,  in 
which  country  he  spent  the  larger  part  of  the  summer 
of  1877.  This  choice  of  the  Fatherland  as  a  place  of 
pilgrimage  was  probably  merely  a  reflection  of  the  en- 
thusiasm for  German  educational  methods  which  then 
prevailed  in  the  United  States,  especially  at  Johns  Hop- 
kins. Page's  letters  are  the  usual  traveller's  descriptions 
of  unfamiliar  customs,  museums,  libraries,  and  the  like; 
so  far  as  enlarging  his  outlook  was  concerned  the  ex- 
perience does  not  seem  to  have  been  especially  profitable. 
He  returned  to  Baltimore  in  the  autumn  of  1877,  but 
only  for  a  few  months.  He  had  pretty  definitely  aban- 
doned his  plan  of  devoting  his  life  to  Greek  scholarship. 
As  a  mental  stimulus,  as  a  recreation  from  the  cares  of 
life,  his  Greek  authors  would  always  be  a  first  love,  as 
they  proved  to  be;  but  he  had  abandoned  his  early  am- 
bition of  making  them  his  everyday  occupation  and  means 
of  livelihood.  Of  course  there  was  only  one  career  for  a 
man  of  his  leanings,  and,  more  and  more,  his  mind  was 
turning  to  journalism.  For  only  one  brief  period  did  he 
again  listen  to  the  temptations  of  a  scholar's  existence. 
The  university  of  his  native  state  invited  him  to  lecture 
in  the  summer  school  of  1878;  he  took  Shakespeare  for 
his  subject,  and  made  so  great  a  success  that  there  was 
some  discussion  of  his  settling  down  permanently  at 
Chapel  Hill  in  the  chair  of  Greek.  Had  the  offer  def- 
initely been  made  Page  would  probably  have  accepted, 
but  difficulties  arose.  Page  was  no  longer  orthodox  in 
his  religious  views;  he  had  long  outgrown  dogma  and 
could  only  smile  at  the  recollection  that  he  had  once 
thought  of  becoming  a  clergyman.  But  a  rationalist 
at  the  University  of  North  Carolina  in  1878  could  hardly 


A   RECONSTRUCTION   BOYHOOD  31 

be  endured.  The  offer,  therefore,  fortunately  was  not 
made.  Afterward  Page  was  much  criticized  for  having 
left  his  native  state  at  a  time  when  it  especially  needed 
young  men  of  his  type.  It  may  therefore  be  recorded 
that,  if  there  were  any  blame  at  all,  it  rested  upon  North 
Carolina.  He  refers  to  his  disappointment  in  a  letter  in 
February,  1879 — a  letter  that  proved  to  be  a  prophecy. 
"  I  shall  some  day  buy  a  home,"  he  says,  "where  I  was  not 
allowed  to  work  for  one,  and  be  laid  away  in  the  soil  that 
I  love.  I  wanted  to  work  for  the  old  state ;  it  had  no  need 
for  it,  it  seems.  " 


CHAPTER  II 

JOURNALISM 


THE  five  years  from  1878  to  1883  Page  spent  in  various 
places,  engaged,  for  the  larger  part  of  the  time,  in 
several  kinds  of  journalistic  work.  It  was  his  period  of 
struggle  and  of  preparation.  Like  many  American  public 
men  he  served  a  brief  apprenticeship — in  his  case,  a  very 
brief  one — as  a  pedagogue.  In  the  autumn  of  1878  he 
went  to  Louisville,  Kentucky,  and  taught  English  for  a 
year  at  the  Boys'  High  School.  But  he  presently  found 
an  occupation  in  this  progressive  city  which  proved  far 
more  absorbing.  A  few  months  before  his  arrival  certain 
energetic  spirits  had  founded  a  weekly  paper,  the  Age, 
a  journal  which,  they  hoped,  would  fill  the  place  in  the 
Southern  States  which  the  very  successful  New  York 
Nation,  under  the  editorship  of  Godkin,  was  then  occupy- 
ing in  the  North.  Page  at  once  began  contributing  lead- 
ing articles  on  literary  and  political  topics  to  this 
publication;  the  work  proved  so  congenial  that  he  pur- 
chased— on  notes — a  controlling  interest  in  the  new  ven- 
ture and  became  its  directing  spirit.  The  Age  was  in 
every  way  a  worthy  enterprise ;  in  the  dignity  of  its  make- 
up and  the  high  literary  standards  at  which  it  aimed  it 
imitated  the  London  Spectator.  Perhaps  Page  obtained 
a  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  fun  out  of  his  investment ;  if 
so,  that  represented  his  entire  profit.  He  now  learned 
a  lesson  which  was  emphasized  in  his  after  career  as  editor 
and  publisher,  and  that  was  that  the  Southern  States  pro- 

32 


JOURNALISM  33 

vided  a  poor  market  for  books  or  periodicals.  The  net 
result  of  the  proceeding  was  that,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
three,  he  found  himself  out  of  a  job  and  considerably  in 
debt. 

He  has  himself  rapidly  sketched  his  varied  activities 
of  the  next  five  years : 

"After  trying  in  vain,"  he  writes,  "to  get  work  to  do 
on  any  newspaper  in  North  Carolina,  I  advertised  for  a 
job  in  journalism — any  sort  of  a  job.  By  a  queer  accident 
— a  fortunate  one  for  me — the  owner  of  the  St.  Joseph,  Mis- 
souri, Gazette,  answered  the  advertisement.  Why  he  did  it, 
I  never  found  out.  He  was  in  the  same  sort  of  desperate 
need  of  a  newspaper  man  as  I  was  in  desperate  need  of  a 
job.  I  knew  nothing  about  him :  he  knew  nothing  about 
me.  I  knew  nothing  about  newspaper  work.  I  had  done 
nothing  since  I  left  the  University  but  teach  English  in  the 
Louisville,  Kentucky,  High  School  for  boys  one  winter 
and  lecture  at  the  summer  school  at  Chapel  Hill  one  sum- 
mer. I  made  up  my  mind  to  go  into  journalism.  But 
journalism  didn't  seem  in  any  hurry  to  make  up  its  mind 
to  admit  me.  Not  only  did  all  the  papers  in  North  Caro- 
lina decline  my  requests  for  work,  but  such  of  them  in 
Baltimore  and  Louisville  as  I  tried  said  'No.'  So  I  bor- 
rowed $50  and  set  out  to  St.  Joe,  Missouri,  where  I  didn  't 
know  a  human  being.  I  became  a  reporter.  At  first 
I  reported  the  price  of  cattle — went  to  the  stockyards,  etc. 
My  salary  came  near  to  paying  my  board  and  lodging,  but 
it  didn't  quite  do  it.  But  I  had  a  good  time  in  St.  Joe 
for  somewhat  more  than  a  year.  There  were  interesting 
people  there.  I  came  to  know  something  about  Western 
life.  Kansas  was  across  the  river.  I  often  went  there. 
I  came  to  know  Kansas  City,  St.  Louis — a  good  deal  of 
the  West.  After  a  while  I  was  made  editor  of  the  pa- 
per. What  a  rousing  political  campaign  or  two  we  had ! 


34         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Then — I  had  done  that  kind  of  a  job  as  long  as  I  cared 
to.  Every  swashbuckling  campaign  is  like  every  other 
one.  Why  do  two?  Besides,  I  knew  my  trade.  I  had 
done  everything  on  a  daily  paper  from  stockyard  reports 
to  political  editorials  and  heavy  literary  articles.  In  the 
meantime  I  had  written  several  magazine  articles  and 
done  other  such  jobs.  I  got  leave  of  absence  for  a  month 
or  two.  I  wrote  to  several  of  the  principal  papers  in 
Chicago,  New  York,  and  Boston  and  told  them  that  I 
was  going  down  South  to  make  political  and  social  studies 
and  that  I  was  going  to  send  them  my  letters.  I  hoped 
they'd  publish  them. 

"That's  all  I  could  say.  I  could  make  no  engagement; 
they  didn't  know  me.  I  didn't  even  ask  for  an  engage- 
ment. I  told  them  simply  this :  that  I  'd  write  letters  and 
send  them;  and  I  prayed  heaven  that  they'd  print  them 
and  pay  for  them.  Then  off  I  went  with  my  little  money 
in  my  pocket — about  enough  to  get  to  New  Orleans.  I 
travelled  and  I  wrote.  I  went  all  over  the  South.  I  sent 
letters  and  letters  and  letters.  All  the  papers  published  all 
that  I  sent  them  and  I  was  rolling  in  wealth !  I  had  money 
in  my  pocket  for  the  first  time  in  my  life.  Then  I  went 
back  to  St.  Joe  and  resigned ;  for  the  (old)  New  York  World 
had  asked  me  to  go  to  the  Atlanta  Exposition  as  a  cor- 
respondent. I  went.  I  wrote  and  kept  writing.  How 
kind  Henry  Grady  was  to  me!  But  at  last  the  Expo- 
sition ended.  I  was  out  of  a  job.  I  applied  to  the 
Constitution.  No,  they  wouldn't  have  me.  I  never  got 
a  job  in  my  life  that  I  asked  for!  But  all  my  life  better 
jobs  have  been  given  me  than  I  dared  ask  for.  Well — 
I  was  at  the  end  of  my  rope  in  Atlanta  and  I  was  trying  to 
make  a  living  in  any  honest  way  I  could  when  one  day  a 
telegram  came  from  the  New  York  World  (it  was  the  old 
World,  which  was  one  of  the  best  of  the  dailies  in  its 


JOURNALISM  35 

literary  quality)  asking  me  to  come  to  New  York.  I  had 
never  seen  a  man  on  the  paper — had  never  been  in  New 
York  except  for  a  day  when  I  landed  there  on  a  return 
voyage  from  a  European  trip  that  I  took  during  one  va- 
cation when  I  was  in  the  University.  Then  I  went  to  New 
York  straight  and  quickly.  I  had  an  interesting  experience 
on  the  old  World,  writing  literary  matter  chiefly,  an  edi- 
torial now  and  then,  and  I  was  frequently  sent  as  a  cor- 
respondent on  interesting  errands.  I  travelled  all  over  the 
country  with  the  Tariff  Commission.  I  spent  one  winter 
in  Washington  as  a  sort  of  editorial  correspondent  while 
the  tariff  bill  was  going  through  Congress.  Then,  one 
day,  the  World  was  sold  to  Mr.  Pulitzer  and  all  the  staff 
resigned.  The  character  of  the  paper  changed." 

What  better  training  could  a  journalist  ask  for  than 
this?  Page  was  only  twenty-eight  when  these  five  years 
came  to  an  end;  but  his  life  had  been  a  comprehensive 
education  in  human  contact,  in  the  course  of  which  he  had 
picked  up  many  things  that  were  not  included  in  the  rou- 
tine of  Johns  Hopkins  University.  From  Athens  to  St. 
Joe,  from  the  comedies  of  Aristophanes  to  the  stockyards 
and  political  conventions  of  Kansas  City — the  transition 
may  possibly  have  been  an  abrupt  one,  but  it  is  not  likely 
that  Page  so  regarded  it.  For  books  and  the  personal 
relation  both  appealed  to  him,  in  almost  equal  proportions, 
as  essentials  to  the  fully  rounded  man.  Merely  from  the 
standpoint  of  geography,  Page's  achievement  had  been  an 
important  one;  how  many  Americans,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-eight,  have  such  an  extensive  mileage  to  their 
credit?  Page  had  spent  his  childhood — and  his  childhood 
only — in  North  Carolina;  he  had  passed  his  youth  in 
Virginia  and  Maryland ;  before  he  was  twenty-three  he  had 
lived  several  months  in  Germany,  and,  on  his  return 
voyage,  he  had  sailed  by  the  white  cliffs  of  England,  and, 


36          THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

from  the  deck  of  his  steamer,  had  caught  glimpses  of  that 
Isle  of  Wight  which  then  held  his  youthful  favourite  Ten- 
nyson. He  had  added  to  these  experiences  a  winter  in 
Kentucky  and  a  sojourn  of  nearly  two  years  in  Missouri. 
His  Southern  trip,  to  which  Page  refers  in  the  above,  had 
taken  him  through  Tennessee,  Mississippi,  Alabama, 
Georgia,  and  Louisiana;  he  had  visited  the  West  again  in 
1882,  spending  a  considerable  time  in  all  the  large  cities, 
Chicago,  Omaha,  Denver,  Leadville,  Salt  Lake,  and  from 
the  latter  point  he  had  travelled  extensively  through 
Mormondom.  The  several  months  spent  in  Atlanta  had 
given  the  young  correspondent  a  glimpse  into  the  new 
South,  for  this  energetic  city  embodied  a  Southern  spirit 
that  was  several  decades  removed  from  the  Civil  War. 
After  this  came  nearly  two  years  in  New  York  and  Wash- 
ington, where  Page  gained  his  first  insight  into  Federal 
politics;  in  particular,  as  a  correspondent  attached  to  the 
Tariff  Commission — an  assignment  that  again  started 
him  on  his  travels  to  industrial  centres — he  came  into  con- 
tact, for  the  first  time,  with  the  mechanism  of  framing  the 
great  American  tariff.  And  during  this  period  Page  was 
not  only  forming  a  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the  pass- 
ing scene,  but  also  with  important  actors  in  it.  The  mere 
fact  that,  on  the  St.  Joseph  Gazette,  he  succeeded  Eugene 
Field — "a  good  fellow  named  Page  is  going  to  take  my 
desk,"  said  the  careless  poet,  "I  hope  he  will  succeed  to 
my  debts  too" — always  remained  a  pleasant  memory. 
He  entered  zealously  into  the  life  of  this  active  commun- 
ity ;  his  love  of  talk  and  disputation,  his  interest  in  politics, 
his  hearty  laugh,  his  vigorous  handclasp,  his  animation  of 
body  and  of  spirit,  and  his  sunny  outlook  on  men  and 
events — these  are  the  traits  that  his  old  friends  in  this 
town,  some  of  whom  still  survive,  associate  with  the 
juvenile  editor.  In  his  Southern  trip  Page  called — self- 


Walter  H.  Page  in  1876,  when  he  was  a  Fellow  of  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  Baltimore,  Md 


Basil  L.  Gildersleeve,  Professor  of  Greek,  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, 1876-1915 


JOURNALISM  37 

invited— upon  Jefferson  Davis  and  was  cordially  re- 
ceived. At  Atlanta,  as  he  records  above,  he  made  friends 
with  that  chivalric  champion  of  a  resurrected  South, 
Henry  Grady;  here  also  he  obtained  fugitive  glimpses 
of  a  struggling  and  briefless  lawyer,  who,  like  Page,  was 
interested  more  in  books  and  writing  than  in  the  hum- 
drum of  professional  life,  and  who  was  then  engaged 
in  putting  together  a  brochure  on  Congressional  Govern- 
ment which  immediately  gave  him  a  national  standing. 
The  name  of  this  sympathetic  acquaintance  was  Wood- 
row  Wilson. 

Another  important  event  had  taken  place,  for,  at  St. 
Louis,  on  November  15,  1880,  Page  had  married  Miss 
Willia  Alice  Wilson.  Miss  Wilson  was  the  daughter  of  a 
Scotch  physician,  Dr.  William  Wilson,  who  had  settled 
in  Michigan,  near  Detroit,  in  1832.  When  she  was  a 
small  child  she  went  with  her  sister's  family — her  father 
had  died  seven  years  before — to  North  Carolina,  near 
Gary;  and  she  and  Page  had  been  childhood  friends  and 
schoolmates.  At  the  time  of  the  wedding,  Page  was 
editor  of  the  St.  Joseph  Gazette;  the  fact  that  he  had 
attained  this  position,  five  months  after  starting  at  the 
bottom,  sufficiently  discloses  his  aptitude  for  journalistic 
work. 

Page  had  now  outgrown  any  Southern  particularism 
with  which  he  may  have  started  life.  He  no  longer  found 
his  country  exclusively  in  the  area  south  of  the  Potomac; 
he  had  made  his  own  the  West,  the  North — New  York, 
Chicago,  Denver,  as  well  as  Atlanta  and  Raleigh.  It  is 
worth  while  insisting  on  this  fact,  for  the  cultivation  of  a 
wide-sweeping  Americanism  and  a  profound  faith  in  de- 
mocracy became  the  qualities  that  will  loom  most  largely  in 
his  career  from  this  time  forward.  It  is  necessary  only  to 
read  the  newspaper  letters  which  he  wrote  on  his  Southern 


38         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

trip  in  1881  to  understand  how  early  his  mind  seized  this 
new  point  of  view.  Many  things  which  now  fell  under 
his  observant  eye  in  the  Southern  States  greatly  irritated 
him  and  with  his  characteristic  impulsiveness  he  pictured 
these  traits  in  pungent  phrase.  The  atmosphere  of 
shiftlessness  that  too  generally  prevailed  in  some  localities ; 
the  gangs  of  tobacco-chewing  loafers  assembled  around  rail- 
way stations ;  the  listless  Negroes  that  seemed  to  overhang 
the  whole  country  like  a  black  cloud;  the  plantation  man- 
sions in  a  sad  state  of  disrepair;  the  old  unoccupied  slave 
huts  overgrown  with  weeds  ;theunpaintedandbroken-down 
fences;  the  rich  soil  that  was  crudely  and  wastefully  cul- 
tivated with  a  single  crop — the  youthful  social  philosopher 
found  himself  comparing  these  vestigia  of  a  half-moribund 
civilization  with  the  vibrant  cities  of  the  North,  the  beau- 
tiful white  and  green  villages  of  New  England,  and  the 
fertile  prairie  farms  of  the  West.  "Even  the  dogs," 
he  said,  "look  old-fashioned."  Oh,  for  a  change  in  his 
beloved  South — a  change  of  almost  any  kind!  "Even 
a  heresy,  if  it  be  bright  and  fresh,  would  be  a  relief.  You 
feel  as  if  you  wished  to  see  some  kind  of  an  effort  put 
forth,  a  discussion,  a  fight,  a  runaway,  anything  to  make 
the  blood  go  faster."  Wherever  Page  saw  signs  of  a  new 
spirit — and  he  saw  many — he  recorded  them  with  an 
eagerness  which  showed  his  loyalty  to  the  section  of  his 
birth.  The  splitting  up  of  great  plantations  into  small 
farms  he  put  down  as  one  of  the  indications  of  a  new 
day.  A  growing  tendency  to  educate,  not  only  the 
white  child,  but  the  Negro,  inspired  a  similar  tribute. 
But  he  rejoiced  most  over  the  decreasing  bitterness  of  the 
masses  over  the  memories  of  the  Civil  War,  and  dis- 
covered, with  satisfaction,  that  any  remaining  ill-feeling 
was  a  heritage  left  not  by  the  Union  soldier,  but  by 
the  carpetbagger. 


JOURNALISM  39 

And  one  scene  is  worth  preserving,  for  it  illustrates  not 
only  the  zeal  of  Page  himself  for  the  common  country,  but 
the  changing  attitude  of  the  Southern  people.  It  was 
enacted  at  Martin,  Tennessee,  on  the  evening  of  July  2, 
1881.  Page  was  spending  a  few  hours  in  the  village 
grocery,  discussing  things  in  general  with  the  local  yeo- 
manry, when  the  telegraph  operator  came  from  the  post 
office  with  rather  more  than  his  usual  expedition  and  ex- 
citement. He  was  frantically  waving  a  yellow  slip  which 
bore  the  news  that  President  Garfield  had  been  shot. 
Garfield  had  been  an  energetic  and  a  successful  general 
in  the  war  and  his  subsequent  course  in  Congress,  where 
he  had  joined  the  radical  Republicans,  had  not  caused  the 
South  to  look  upon  him  as  a  friend.  But  these  farmers 
responded  to  this  shock,  not  like  sectionalists,  but  like 
Americans.  "Every  man  of  them,"  Page  records,  "ex- 
pressed almost  a  personal  sorrow.  Little  was  said  of 
politics  or  of  parties.  Mr.  Garfield  was  President  of  the 
United  States — that  was  enough.  A  dozen  voices  spoke 
the  great  gratification  that  the  assassin  was  not  a 
Southern  man.  It  was  an  affecting  scene  to  see  weather- 
beaten  old  countrymen  so  profoundly  agitated — men 
who  yesterday  I  should  have  supposed  hardly  knew 
and  certainly  did  not  seem  to  care  who  was  President. 
The  great  centres  of  population,  of  politicians,  and  of 
thought  may  be  profoundly  agitated  to-night,  but  no 
more  patriotic  sorrow  and  humiliation  is  felt  anywhere 
by  any  men  than  by  these  old  backwoods  ex-Confeder- 
ates." 

Page  himself  was  so  stirred  by  the  news  that  he  as- 
cended a  cracker  barrel,  and  made  a  speech  to  the  as- 
sembled countrymen,  preaching  to  responsive  ears  the 
theme  of  North  and  South,  now  reunited  in  a  common 
sorrow.  Thus,  by  the  time  he  was  twenty-six,  Page,  at 


40         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

any  rate  in  respect  to  his  Americanism,  was  a  full-grown 
man. 

ii 

A  few  years  afterward  Page  had  an  opportunity  of  dis- 
cussing this,  his  favourite  topic,  with  the  American  whom 
he  most  admired.  Perhaps  the  finest  thing  in  the  career  of 
Grover  Cleveland  was  the  influence  which  he  exerted  upon 
young  men.  After  the  sordid  political  transactions  of  the 
reconstruction  period  and  after  the  orgy  of  partisanship 
which  had  followed  the  Civil  War,  this  new  figure,  acceding 
to  the  Presidency  in  1885,  came  as  an  inspiration  to  millions 
of  zealous  and  intelligent  young  college-bred  Americans. 
One  of  the  first  to  feel  the  new  spell  was  Walter  Page; 
Mr.  Cleveland  was  perhaps  the  most  important  influence 
in  forming  his  public  ideals.  Of  everything  that  Cleve- 
land represented — civil  service  reform;  the  cleansing  of 
politics,  state  and  national;  the  reduction  in  the  tariff; 
a  foreign  policy  which,  without  degenerating  into  trucu- 
lence,  manfully  upheld  the  rights  of  American  citizens; 
a  determination  to  curb  the  growing  pension  evil;  the 
doctrine  that  the  Government  was  something  to  be  served 
and  not  something  to  be  plundered — Page  became  an 
active  and  brilliant  journalistic  advocate.  It  was  there- 
fore a  great  day  in  his  life  when,  on  a  trip  to  Washington 
in  the  autumn  of  1885,  he  had  an  hour's  private  conver- 
sation with  President  Cleveland,  and  it  was  entirely  char- 
acteristic of  Page  that  he  should  make  the  conversation 
take  the  turn  of  a  discussion  of  the  so-called  Southern 
question. 

"In  the  White  House  at  Washington,"  Page  wrote 
about  this  visit,  "is  an  honest,  plain,  strong  man,  a  man 
of  wonderfully  broad  information  and  of  most  uncommon 
industry.  He  has  always  been  a  Democrat.  He  is  a  dis- 


JOURNALISM  41 

tinguished  lawyer  and  a  scholar  on  all  public  questions. 
He  is  as  frank  and  patriotic  and  sincere  as  any  man  that 
ever  won  the  high  place  he  holds.  Within  less  than  a 
year  he  has  done  so  well  and  so  wisely  that  he  has  dis- 
appointed his  enemies  and  won  their  admiration.  He  is 
as  unselfish  as  he  is  great.  He  is  one  of  the  most  in- 
dustrious men  in  the  world.  He  rises  early  and  works 
late  and  does  not  waste  his  time — all  because  his  time  is 
now  not  his  own  but  the  Republic's,  whose  most  honoured 
servant  he  is.  I  count  it  among  the  most  inspiring  ex- 
periences in  my  life  that  I  had  the  privilege,  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  one  of  his  personal  friends,  of  talking  with  him 
one  morning  about  the  complete  reuniting  of  the  two 
great  sections  of  our  Republic  by  his  election.  I  told 
him,  and  I  know  I  told  him  the  truth,  when  I  said  that 
every  young  man  in  the  Southern  States  who,  without 
an  opportunity  to  share  either  the  glory  or  the  defeat  of 
the  late  Confederacy,  had  in  spite  of  himself  suffered  the 
disadvantages  of  the  poverty  and  oppression  that  fol- 
lowed war,  took  new  hope  for  the  full  and  speedy  reali- 
zation of  a  complete  union,  of  unparalleled  prosperity 
and  of  broad  thinking  and  noble  living  from  his  elevation 
to  the  Presidency.  I  told  him  that  the  men  of  North 
Carolina  were  not  only  patriotic  but  ambitious  as  well; 
and  that  they  were  Democrats  and  proud  citizens  of  the, 
State  and  the  Republic  not  because  they  wanted  offices 
or  favours,  but  because  they  loved  freedom  and  wished 
the  land  that  had  been  impoverished  by  war  to  regain 
more  than  it  had  lost.  *  I  have  not  called,  Mr.  President, 
to  ask  for  an  office  for  myself  or  for  anybody  else, '  I  re- 
marked ; '  but  to  have  the  pleasure  of  expressing  my  grati- 
fication, as  a  citizen  of  North  Carolina,  at  the  complete 
change  in  political  methods  and  morals  that  I  believe 
will  date  from  your  Administration. '  He  answered  that 


42         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

he  was  glad  to  see  all  men  who  came  in  such  a  spirit  and 
did  not  come  to  beg — especially  young  men  of  the  South 
of  to-day;  and  he  talked  and  encouraged  me  to  talk 
freely  as  if  he  had  been  as  small  a  man  as  I  am,  or  I  as 
great  a  man  as  he  is. 

"From  that  day  to  this  it  has  been  my  business  to 
watch  every  public  act  that  he  does,  to  read  every  public 
word  he  speaks,  and  it  has  been  a  pleasure  and  a  benefit 
to  me  (like  the  benefit  that  a  man  gets  from  reading  a 
great  history — for  he  is  making  a  great  history)  to  study 
the  progress  of  his  Administration ;  and  at  every  step  he 
seems  to  me  to  warrant  the  trust  that  the  great  Democratic 
party  put  in  him." 

The  period  to  which  Page  refers  in  this  letter  repre- 
sented the  time  when  he  was  making  a  serious  and  harass- 
ing attempt  to  establish  himself  in  his  chosen  profession 
in  his  native  state.  He  went  south  for  a  short  visit 
after  resigning  his  place  on  the  New  York  World,  and 
several  admirers  in  Raleigh  persuaded  him  to  found  a 
new  paper,  which  should  devote  itself  to  preaching  the 
Cleveland  ideals,  and,  above  all,  to  exerting  an  influence 
on  the  development  of  a  new  Southern  spirit.  No  task 
could  have  been  more  grateful  to  Page  and  there  was 
no  place  in  which  he  would  have  better  liked  to  under- 
take it  than  in  the  old  state  which  he  loved  so  well.  The 
result  was  the  State  Chronicle  of  Raleigh,  practically  a 
new  paper,  which  for  a  year  and  a  half  proved  to  be 
the  most  unconventional  and  refreshing  influence  that 
North  Carolina  had  known  in  many  a  year.  Necessarily 
Page  found  himself  in  conflict  with  his  environment.  He 
had  little  interest  in  the  things  that  then  chiefly  interested 
the  state,  and  North  Carolina  apparently  had  little  in- 
terest in  the  things  that  chiefly  occupied  the  mind  of  the 
youthful  journalist.  Page  was  interested  in  Cleveland, 


JOURNALISM  43 

in  the  reform  of  the  civil  service ;  the  Democrats  of  North 
Carolina  little  appreciated  their  great  national  leader 
and  were  especially  hostile  to  his  belief  that  service  to  a 
party  did  not  in  itself  establish  a  qualification  for  public 
office.  Page  was  interested  in  uplifting  the  common 
people,  in  helping  every  farmer  to  own  his  own  acres,  and 
in  teaching  the  most  modern  and  scientific  way  of  culti- 
vating them;  he  was  interested  in  giving  every  boy  and 
girl  at  least  an  elementary  education,  and  in  giving  a 
university  training  to  such  as  had  the  aptitude  and  the 
ambition  to  obtain  it;  he  believed  in  industrial  training 
— and  in  these  things  the  North  Carolina  of  those  days 
had  little  concern.  Page  even  went  so  far  as  to  take  an 
open  stand  for  the  pitiably  neglected  black  man:  he  in- 
sisted that  he  should  be  taught  to  read  and  write,  and 
instructed  in  agriculture  and  the  manual  trades.  A  man 
who  advocated  such  revolutionary  things  in  those  days 
was  accused — and  Page  was  so  accused — of  attempting  to 
promote  the  "social  equality"  of  the  two  races.  Page 
also  declaimed  in  favour  of  developing  the  state  indus- 
trially; he  called  attention  to  the  absurdity  of  sending 
Southern  cotton  to  New  England  spinning  mills,  and  he 
pointed  out  the  boundless  but  unworked  natural  resources 
of  the  state,  in  minerals,  forests,  waterpower,  and  lands. 
North  Carolina,  he  informed  his  astonished  compatriots, 
had  once  been  a  great  manufacturing  colony;  why  could 
the  state  not  become  one  again?  But  the  matter  in  which 
the  buoyant  editor  and  his  constituents  found  themselves 
most  at  variance  was  the  spirit  that  controlled  North 
Carolina  life.  ( It  was  a  spirit  that  found  comfort  for  its 
present  poverty  and  lack  of  progress  in  a  backward  look 
at  the  greatness  of  the  state  in  the  past  and  the  achieve- 
ments of  its  sons  in  the  Civil  War.  J  Though  Page  believed 
that  the  Confederacy  had  been  a  ghastly  error,  and  though 


44         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

he  abhorred  the  institution  of  slavery  and  attributed  to 
it  all  the  woes,  economic  and  social,  from  which  his  section 
suffered,  he  rendered  that  homage  to  the  soldiers  of  the 
South  which  is  the  due  of  brave,  self-sacrificing  and 
conscientious  men;  yet  he  taught  that  progress  lay  in  re- 
garding the  four  dreadful  years  of  the  Civil  War  as  the 
closed  chapter  of  an  unhappy  and  mistaken  history  and 
in  hastening  the  day  when  the  South  should  resume  its 
place  as  a  living  part  of  the  great  American  democracy. 
All  manifestations  of  a  contrary  spirit  he  ridiculed  in 
language  which  was  extremely  readable  but  which  at 
times  outraged  the  good  conservative  people  whom  he 
was  attempting  to  convert.  He  did  not  even  spare  the 
one  figure  which  was  almost  a  part  of  the  Southerner's 
religion,  the  Confederate  general,  especially  that  par- 
ticular type  who  used  his  war  record  as  a  stepping  stone 
to  public  office,  and  whose  oratory,  colourful  and  turgid 
in  its  celebrations  of  the  past,  Page  regarded  as  somewhat 
unrelated,  in  style  and  matter,  to  the  realities  of  the 
present.  The  image-breaking  editor  even  asserted  that 
the  Daughters  of  the  Confederacy  were  not  entirely  a 
helpful  influence  in  Southern  regeneration;  for  they,  too, 
were  harping  always  upon  the  old  times  and  keeping  alive 
sectional  antagonisms  and  hatreds.  This  he  regarded 
as  an  unworthy  occupation  for  high-minded  Southern 
women,  and  he  said  so,  sometimes  in  language  that  made 
him  very  unpopular  in  certain  circles. 

Altogether  it  was  a  piquant  period  in  Page's  life.  He 
found  that  he  had  suddenly  become  a  "traitor"  to  his 
country  and  that  his  experiences  in  the  North  had  com- 
pletely "Yankeeized"  him.  Even  in  more  mature  days, 
Page's  pen  had  its  javelin-like  quality;  and  in  1884,  pos- 
sessed as  he  was  of  all  the  fury  of  youth,  he  never  hesitated 
to  return  every  blow  that  was  rained  upon  his  head.  As 


JOURNALISM  45 

a  matter  of  fact  he  had  a  highly  enjoyable  time.  The 
State  Chronicle  during  his  editorship  is  one  of  the  most 
cherished  recollections  of  older  North  Carolinians  to-day. 
Even  those  who  hurled  the  liveliest  epithets  in  his  di- 
rection have  long  since  accepted  the  ideas  for  which  Page 
was  then  contending;  "the  only  trouble  with  him,"  they 
now  ruefully  admit,  t'was  that  he  was  forty  years  ahead 
of  his  time.")  They  recall  with  satisfaction  the  satiric 
accounts  which  Page  used  to  publish  of  Democratic  Con- 
ventions— solemn,  long-winded,  frock-coated,  white-neck- 
tied  affairs  that  displayed  little  concern  for  the  reform  of 
the  tariff  or  of  the  civil  service,  but  an  energetic  interest  in 
pensioning  Confederate  veterans  and  erecting  monuments 
to  the  Southern  heroes  of  the  Civil  War.  One  editorial 
is  joyfully  recalled,  in  which  Page  referred  to  a  public 
officer  who  was  distinguished  for  his  dignity  and  his 
family  tree,  but  not  noted  for  any  animated  administra- 
tion of  his  duties,  as  "Thothmes  II."  When  this  be- 
wildered functionary  searched  the  Encyclopaedia  and 
learned  that  "Thothmes  II"  was  an  Egyptian  king  of  the 
XVIIIth  dynasty,  whose  dessicated  mummy  had  re- 
cently been  disinterred  from  the  hot  sands  of  the  desert, 
he  naturally  stopped  his  subscription  to  the  paper. 
The  metaphor  apparently  tickled  Page,  for  he  used  it  in 
a  series  of  articles  which  have  become  immortal  in  the 
political  annals  of  North  Carolina.  These  have  always 
been  known  as  the  "Mummy  letters."  They  furnished 
a  vivid  but  rather  aggravating  explanation  for  the 
existing  backwardness  and  chauvinism  of  the  common- 
wealth. All  the  trouble,  it  seems,  was  caused  by  the 
"mummies."  "It  is  an  awfully  discouraging  business," 
Page  wrote,  £'  to  undertake  to  prove  to  a  mummy  that  it 
is  a  mummy,  j  You  go  up  to  it  and  say,  'Old  fellow,  the 
Egyptian  dynasties  crumbled  several  thousand  years  ago : 


46         THE   LIFE    AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

you  are  a  fish  out  of  water.  You  have  by  accident  or  the 
Providence  of  God  got  a  long  way  out  of  your  time.  This 
is  America.'  The  old  thing  grins  that  grin  which  death 
set  on  its  solemn  features  when  the  world  was  young;  and 
your  task  is  so  pitiful  that  even  the  humour  of  it  is  gone. 
Give  it  up." 

Everything  great  in  North  Carolina,  Page  declared,  be- 
longed to  a  vanished  generation.  "  Our  great  lawyers,  great 
judges,  great  editors,  are  all  of  the  past.  ...  In 
the  general  intelligence  of  the  people,  in  intellectual  force 
and  in  cultivation,  we  are  doing  nothing.  We  are  not 
doing  or  getting  more  liberal  ideas,  a  broader  view  of  this 
world.  .  .  .  The  presumptuous  powers  of  ignorance, 
heredity,  decayed  respectability  and  stagnation  that  con- 
trol public  action  and  pubh'c  expression  are  absolutely 
leading  us  back  intellectually." 

But  Page  did  more  than  berate  the  mummified  aristo- 
cracy which,  he  declared,  was  driving  the  best  talent  and 
initiative  from  the  state;  he  was  not  the  only  man  in 
Raleigh  who  expressed  these  unpopular  views ;  at  that  time, 
indeed,  he  was  the  centre  and  inspiration  of  a  group  of 
young  progressive  spirits  who  held  frequent  meetings  to  de- 
vise ways  of  starting  the  state  on  the  road  to  a  new  exist- 
ence. Page  then,  as  always,  exercised  a  great  fascination 
over  young  men.  The  apparently  merciless  character  of 
his  ridicule  might  at  first  convey  the  idea  of  intolerance ; 
the  fact  remains,  however,  that  he  was  the  most  tolerant 
of  men ;  he  was  almost  deferential  to  the  opinions  of  others, 
even  the  shallow  and  the  inexperienced;  and  nothing  de- 
lighted him  more  than  an  animated  discussion.  His 
liveliness  of  spirits,  his  mental  and  physical  vitality,  the 
constant  sparkle  of  his  talk,  the  sharp  edge  of  his  humour, 
naturally  drew  the  younger  men  to  his  side.  The  result 
was  the  organization  of  the  Wautauga  Club,  a  gathering 


JOURNALISM  47 

which  held  monthly  meetings  for  the  discussion  of  ways 
and  means  of  improving  social  and  educational  condi- 
tions in  North  Carolina.  The  very  name  gives  the  key 
to  its  mental  outlook.  The  Wautauga  colony  was  one  of 
the  last  founded  in  North  Carolina — in  the  extreme  west, 
on  a  plateau  of  the  Great  Smoky  Mountains;  it  was 
always  famous  for  the  energy  and  independence  of  its 
people.  The  word  "Wautauga"  therefore  suggested  the 
breaker  of  tradition ;  and  it  provided  a  stimulating  name 
for  Page's  group  of  young  spiritual  and  economic  path- 
finders. The  Wautauga  Club  had  a  brief  existence  of  a 
little  more  than  two  years,  the  period  practically  covering 
Page's  residence  in  the  state;  but  its  influence  is  an  im- 
portant fact  at  the  present  time.  It  gave  the  state  ideas 
that  afterward  caused  something  like  a  revolution  in  its 
economic  and  educational  status.  The  noblest  monument 
to  its  labours  is  the  State  College  in  Raleigh,  an  institution 
which  now  has  more  than  a  thousand  students,  for  the 
most  part  studying  the  mechanic  arts  and  scientific  ag- 
riculture. To  this  one  college  most  North  Carolinians 
to-day  attribute  the  fact  that  their  state  in  appreciable 
measure  is  realizing  its  great  economic  and  industrial 
opportunities.  From  it  in  the  last  thirty  years  thousands 
of  young  men  have  gone :  in  all  sections  of  the  common- 
wealth they  have  caused  the  almost  barren  acres  to  yield 
fertile  and  diversified  crops;  they  have  planted  every- 
where new  industries;  they  have  unfolded  unsuspected 
resources  and  everywhere  created  wealth  and  spread 
enlightenment.  This  institution  is  a  direct  outcome  of 
Page 's  brief  sojourn  in  his  native  state  nearly  forty  years 
ago.  The  idea  originated  in  his  brain;  the  files  of  the 
State  Chronicle  tell  the  story  of  his  struggle  in  its  behalf; 
the  activities  of  the  Wautauga  Club  were  largely  con- 
centrated upon  securing  its  establishment. 


48         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

The  State  College  was  a  great  victory  for  Page,  but 
final  success  did  not  come  until  three  years  after  he  had 
left  the  state.  For  a  year  and  a  half  of  hard  newspaper 
work  convinced  Page  that  North  Carolina  really  had  no 
permanent  place  for  him.  The  Chronicle  was  editorially  a 
success:  Page's  articles  were  widely  quoted,  not  only 
in  his  own  state  but  in  New  England  and  other  parts  of 
the  Union.  He  succeeded  in  stirring  up  North  Carolina 
and  the  South  generally,  but  popular  support  for  the 
Chronicle  was  not  forthcoming  in  sufficient  amount  to 
make  the  paper  a  commercial  possibility.  Reluctantly  and 
sadly  Page  had  to  forego  his  hope  of  playing  an  active 
part  in  rescuing  his  state  from  the  disasters  of  the  Civil 
War.  Late  in  the  summer  of  1885,  he  again  left  for  the 
North,  which  now  became  his  permanent  home. 

in 

And  with  this  second  sojourn  in  New  York  Page's 
opportunity  came.  The  first  two  years  he  spent  in  news- 
paper work,  for  the  most  part  with  the  Evening  Post,  but, 
one  day  in  November,  1887,  a  man  whom  he  had  never  seen 
came  into  his  office  and  unfolded  a  new  opportunity.  Two 
years  before  a  rather  miscellaneous  group  had  launched 
an  ambitious  literary  undertaking.  This  was  a  monthly 
periodical,  which,  it  was  hoped,  would  do  for  the  United 
States  what  such  publications  as  the  Fortnightly  and  the 
Contemporary  were  doing  for  England.  The  magazine  was 
to  have  the  highest  literary  quality  and  to  be  sufficiently 
dignified  to  attract  the  finest  minds  in  America  as  con- 
tributors; its  purpose  was  to  exercise  a  profound  in- 
fluence in  politics,  literature,  science,  and  art.  The  pro- 
jectors had  selected  for  this  publication  a  title  that  was 
almost  perfection — the  Forum — but  which,  after  nearly 
two  years'  experimentation,  represented  about  the  limit  of 


JOURNALISM  49 

their  achievement.  The  Forum  had  hardly  made  an 
impression  on  public  thought  and  had  attracted  very  few 
readers,  although  it  had  lost  large  sums  of  money  for  its 
progenitors.  These  public-spirited  gentlemen  now  turned 
to  Page  as  the  man  who  might  rescue  them  from  their 
dilemma  and  achieve  their  purpose.  He  accepted  the 
engagement,  first  as  manager  and  presently  as  editor, 
and  remained  the  guiding  spirit  of  the  Forum  for  eight 
years,  until  the  summer  of  1895. 

That  the  success  of  a  publication  is  the  success  of  its 
editors,  and  not  of  its  business  managers  and  its  "back- 
ers," is  a  truth  that  ought  to  be  generally  apparent;  never 
has  this  fact  been  so  eloquently  illustrated  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Forum  under  Page.  Before  his  accession  it  had  had 
not  the  slightest  importance ;  for  the  period  of  his  editor- 
ship it  is  doubtful  if  any  review  published  in  English 
exercised  so  great  an  influence,  and  certainly  none  ever 
obtained  so  large  a  circulation.  From  almost  nothing  the 
Forum,  in  two  or  three  years,  attracted  30,000  sub- 
scribers— something  without  precedent  for  a  publication 
of  this  character.  It  had  accomplished  this  great  re- 
sult simply  because  of  the  vitality  and  interest  of  its 
contents.  The  period  covered  was  an  important  one, 
in  the  United  States  and  Europe;  it  was  the  time  of  Cleve- 
land's second  administration  in  this  country,  and  of 
Gladstone's  fourth  administration  in  England;  it  was  a 
time  of  great  controversy  and  of  a  growing  interest  in 
science,  education,  social  reform  and  a  better  political 
order.  All  these  great  matters  were  reflected  in  the 
pages  of  the  Forum,  whose  list  of  contributors  contained 
the  most  distinguished  names  in  all  countries.  Its  purpose, 
as  Page  explained  it,  was  "to  provoke  discussion  about 
subjects  of  contemporary  interest,  in  which  the  maga- 
zine is  not  a  partisan,  but  merely  the  instrument."  In 


50         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

the  highest  sense,  that  is,  its  purpose  was  journalistic; 
practically  everything  that  it  printed  was  related  to  the 
thought  and  the  action  of  the  time.  So  insistent  was 
Page  on  this  programme  that  his  pages  were  not  "closed" 
until  a  week  before  the  day  of  issue.  Though  the  Forum 
dealt  constantly  in  controversial  subjects  it  never  did  so  in 
a  narrow-minded  spirit;  it  was  always  ready  to  hear  both 
sides  of  a  question  and  the  magazine  "debate,"  in  which 
opposing  writers  handled  vigorously  the  same  theme,  was 
a  constant  feature. 

Page,  indeed,  represented  a  new  type  of  editor.  Up  to 
that  time  this  functionary  had  been  a  rather  solemn,  in- 
accessible high  priest;  he  sat  secluded  in  his  sanctuary,  and 
weeded  out  from  the  mass  of  manuscripts  dumped  upon 
his  desk  the  particular  selections  which  seemed  to  be 
most  suited  to  his  purpose.  To  solicit  contributions 
would  have  seemed  an  entirely  undignified  proceeding;  in 
all  cases  contributors  must  come  to  him.  According  to 
Page,  however,  "an  editor  must  know  men  and  be  out 
among  men."  His  system  of  "making  up"  the  maga- 
zine at  first  somewhat  astounded  his  associates.  A 
month  or  two  in  advance  of  publication  day  he  would 
draw  up  his  table  of  contents.  This,  in  its  preliminary 
stage,  amounted  to  nothing  except  a  list  of  the  main 
subjects  which  he  aspired  to  handle  in  that  number.  It 
was  a  hope,  not  a  performance.  The  subjects  were  com- 
monly suggested  by  the  happenings  of  the  time — an 
especially  outrageous  lynching,  the  trial  of  a  clergyman 
for  heresy,  a  new  attack  upon  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  the 
discovery  of  a  new  substance  such  as  radium,  the  publica- 
tion of  an  epoch-making  book.  Page  would  then  fix  upon 
the  inevitable  men  who  could  write  most  readably  and 
most  authoritatively  upon  these  topics,  and  "go  after" 
them.  Sometimes  he  would  write  one  of  his  matchless 


JOURNALISM  51 

editorial  letters;  at  other  times  he  would  make  a  per- 
sonal visit;  if  necessary,  he  would  use  any  available  friends 
in  a  wire-pulling  campaign.  At  all  odds  he  must  "get" 
his  man;  once  he  had  fixed  upon  a  certain  contributor 
nothing  could  divert  him  from  the  chase.  Nor  did  the 
negotiations  cease  after  he  had  "landed"  his  quarry.  He 
had  his  way  of  discussing  the  subject  with  his  proposed 
writer,  and  he  discussed  it  from  every  possible  point  of 
view.  He  would  take  him  to  lunch  or  to  dinner;  in  his 
quiet  way  he  would  draw  him  out,  find  whether  he  really 
knew  much  about  the  subject,  learn  the  attitude  that  he 
was  likely  to  take,  and  delicately  slip  in  suggestions  of 
his  own.  Not  infrequently  this  preliminary  interview 
would  disclose  that  the  much  sought  writer,  despite 
appearances,  was  not  the  one  who  was  destined  for  that 
particular  job ;  in  this  case  Page  would  find  some  way  of 
shunting  him  in  favour  of  a  more  promising  candidate. 
But  Page  was  no  mere  chaser  of  names ;  there  was  nothing 
of  the  literary  tuft-hunter  about  his  editorial  methods. 
He  liked  to  see  such  men  as  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Woodrow 
Wilson,  William  Graham  Sumner,  Charles  W.  Eliot, 
Frederic  Harrison,  Paul  Bourget,  and  the  like  upon  his 
title  page — and  here  these  and  many  other  similarly 
distinguished  authors  appeared — but  the  greatest  name 
could  not  attain  a  place  there  if  the  letter  press  that  fol- 
lowed were  unworthy.  Indeed  Page 's  habit  of  throwing 
out  the  contributions  of  the  great,  after  paying  a  stiff 
price  for  them,  caused  much  perturbation  in  his  counting 
room.  One  day  he  called  in  one  of  his  associates. 

"Do  you  see  that  waste  basket?"  he  asked,  pointing 
to  a  large  receptacle  filled  to  overflowing  with  manu- 
scripts. "All  our  Cleveland  articles  are  there!" 

He  had  gone  to  great  trouble  and  expense  to  obtain 
a  series  of  six  articles  from  the  most  prominent  publicists 


52         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

and  political  leaders  of  the  country  on  the  first  year  of 
Mr.  Cleveland 's  second  administration.  It  was  to  be  the 
"feature"  of  the  number  then  in  preparation. 

"There  isn't  one  of  them,"  he  declared,  "who  has  got 
the  point.  I  have  thrown  them  all  away  and  I  am  going 
to  try  to  write  something  myself." 

And  he  spent  a  couple  of  days  turning  out  an  article 
which  aroused  great  public  interest.  When  Page  com- 
missioned an  article,  he  meant  simply  that  he  would  pay 
full  price  for  it;  whether  he  would  publish  it  depended 
entirely  upon  the  quality  of  the  material  itself.  But 
Page  was  just  as  severe  upon  his  own  writings  as  upon 
those  of  other  men.  He  wrote  occasionally — always  under 
a  nom-de-plume ;  but  he  had  great  difficulty  in  satisfy- 
ing his  own  editorial  standards.  After  finishing  an  article 
he  would  commonly  send  for  one  of  his  friends  and  read 
the  result. 

"That  is  superb!"  this  admiring  associate  would  some- 
times say. 

In  response  Page  would  take  the  manuscript  and, 
holding  it  aloft  in  two  hands,  tear  it  into  several  bits,  and 
throw  the  scraps  into  the  waste  basket. 

"Oh,  I  can  do  better  than  that,"  he  would  laugh  and  in 
another  minute  he  was  busy  rewriting  the  article,  from 
beginning  to  end. 

Page  retired  from  the  editorship  of  the  Forum  in  1895. 
The  severance  of  relations  was  half  a  comedy,  half  a 
tragedy.  The  proprietors  had  only  the  remotest  relation 
to  literature;  they  had  lost  much  money  in  the  enterprise 
before  Page  became  editor  and  only  the  fortunate  accident 
of  securing  his  services  had  changed  their  losing  venture 
into  a  financial  success.  In  a  moment  of  despair,  before  the 
happier  period  had  arrived,  they  offered  to  sell  the  prop- 
erty to  Page  and  his  friends.  Page  quickly  assembled  a 


JOURNALISM  53 

new  group  to  purchase  control,  when,  much  to  the  amaze- 
ment of  the  old  owners,  the  Forum  began  to  make  money. 
Instead  of  having  a  burden  on  their  hands,  the  proprietors 
suddenly  discovered  that  they  had  a  gold  mine.  They 
therefore  refused  to  deliver  their  holdings  and  an  inevita- 
ble struggle  ensued  for  control.  Page  could  edit  a  mag- 
azine and  turn  a  shipwrecked  enterprise  into  a  profitable 
one;  but,  in  a  tussle  of  this  kind,  he  was  no  match  for  the 
shrewd  business  men  who  owned  the  property.  When  the 
time  came  for  counting  noses  Page  and  his  friends  found 
themselves  in  a  minority.  Of  course  his  resignation  as 
editor  necessarily  followed  this  little  unpleasantness. 
And  just  as  inevitably  the  Forum  again  began  to  lose 
money,  and  soon  sank  into  an  obscurity  from  which  it  has 
never  emerged. 

The  Forum  had  established  Page's  reputation  as  an 
editor,  and  the  competition  for  his  services  was  lively. 
The  distinguished  Boston  publishing  house  of  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Company  immediately  invited  him  to  become 
a  part  of  their  organization.  When  Horace  E.  Scudder, 
in  1898,  resigned  the  editorship  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
Page  succeeded  him.  Thus  Page  became  the  successor  of 
James  Russell  Lowell,  James  T.  Fields,  William  D.  Howells, 
and  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  as  the  head  of  this  famous 
periodical.  This  meant  that  he  had  reached  the  top  of 
his  profession.  He  was  now  forty-three  years  old. 

No  American  publication  had  ever  had  so  brilliant  a 
history.  Founded  in  1857,  in  the  most  flourishing  period 
of  the  New  England  writers,  its  pages  had  first  published 
many  of  the  best  essays  of  Emerson,  the  second  series  of 
the  Biglow  papers  as  well  as  many  other  of  Lowell's 
writings,  poems  of  Longfellow  and  Whittier,  such  great 
successes  as  Holmes's  "Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table," 
Mrs.  Howe's  "Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic,"  and  the 


54         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

early  novels  of  Henry  James.  If  America  had  a  literature, 
the  Atlantic  was  certainly  its  most  successful  periodical 
exponent.  Yet,  in  a  sense,  the  Atlantic,  by  the  time  Page 
succeeded  to  the  editorship,  had  become  the  victim  of 
its  dazzling  past.  Its  recent  editors  had  lived  too  ex- 
clusively in  their  back  numbers.  They  had  conducted 
the  magazine  too  much  for  the  restricted  audience  of 
Boston  and  New  England.  There  was  a  time,  indeed, 
when  the  business  office  arranged  the  subscribers  in  two 
classes — "Boston"  and  "foreign";  "Boston"  representing 
their  local  adherents,  and  "foreign"  the  loyal  readers  who 
lived  in  the  more  benighted  parts  of  the  United  States. 
One  of  its  editors  had  been  heard  to  boast  that  he  never 
solicited  a  contribution;  it  was  not  his  business  to  be 
a  literary  drummer!  Let  the  truth  be  fairly  spoken: 
when  Page  made  his  first  appearance  in  the  Atlantic 
office,  the  magazine  was  unquestionably  on  the  decline. 
Its  literary  quality  was  still  high;  the  momentum  that 
its  great  contributors  had  given  it  was  still  keeping  the 
publication  alive;  entrance  into  its  columns  still  repre- 
sented the  ultimate  ambition  of  the  aspiring  American 
writer;  but  it  needed  a  new  spirit  to  insure  its  future. 
What  it  required  was  the  kind  of  editing  that  had  suddenly 
made  the  Forum  one  of  the  greatest  of  English-written 
reviews.  This  is  the  reason  why  the  canny  Yankee  pro- 
prietors had  reached  over  to  New  York  and  grasped  Page 
as  quickly  as  the  capitalists  of  the  Forum  let  him  slip  be- 
tween their  fingers. 

Page's  sense  of  humour  discovered  a  certain  ironic 
aspect  in  his  position  as  the  dictator  of  this  famous  New 
England  magazine.  The  fact  that  his  manner  was  im- 
patiently energetic  and  somewhat  startling  to  the  placid 
atmosphere  of  Park  Street  was  not  the  thing  that  really 
signified  its  break  with  its  past.  But  here  was  a  South- 


JOURNALISM  55 

erner  firmly  entrenched  in  a  headquarters  that  had  long 
been  sacred  to  the  New  England  abolitionists.  One 
of  the  first  sights  that  greeted  Page,  as  he  came  into  the 
office,  was  the  angular  and  spectacled  countenance  of 
William  Lloyd  Garrison,  gazing  down  from  a  steel  en- 
graving on  the  wall.  One  of  Garrison's  sons  was  a  col- 
league, and  the  anterooms  were  frequently  cluttered  with 
dusky  gentlemen  patiently  waiting  for  interviews  with 
this  benefactor  of  their  race.  Page  once  was  careless 
enough  to  inform  Mr.  Garrison  that  "one  of  your  niggers" 
was  waiting  outside  for  an  audience.  "I  very  much  re- 
gret, Mr.  Page,"  came  the  answer,  "that  you  should  in- 
sist on  spelling  'Negro'  with  two  'g's'."  Despite  the 
mock  solemnity  of  this  rebuke,  perennial  good-nature  and 
raillery  prevailed  between  the  son  of  Garrison  and  his 
disrespectful  but  ever  sympathetic  Southern  friend. 
Indeed,  one  of  Page 's  earliest  performances  was  to  intro- 
f  duce  a  spirit  of  laughter  and  genial  cooperation  into  a 
rather  solemn  and  self-satisfied  environment.  Mr.  Mifflin, 
the  head  of  the  house,  even  formally  thanked  Page  "for 
the  hearty  human  way  in  which  you  take  hold  of  life." 
Mr.  Ellery  Sedgwick,  the  present  editor  of  the  Atlantic,  has 
described  the  somewhat  disconcerting  descent  of  Page 
upon  the  editorial  sanctuary  of  James  Russell  Lowell: 

"Were  a  visitant  from  another  sphere  to  ask  me  for  the 
incarnation  of  those  qualities  we  love  to  call  American,  I 
should  turn  to  a  familiar  gallery  of  my  memory  and  point 
to  the  living  portrait  that  hangs  there  of  Walter  Page.  A 
sort  of  foursquareness,  bluntness,  it  seemed  to  some ;  an  un- 
easy, often  explosive  energy ;  a  disposition  to  underrate  fine 
drawn  nicenesses  of  all  sorts;  ingrained  Yankee  com- 
mon sense,  checking  his  vaulting  enthusiasm;  enormous 
self-confidence,  impatience  of  failure — all  of  these  were 


56         THE   LIFE  AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

in  him;  and  he  was  besides  affectionate  to  a  fault,  devoted 
to  his  country,  his  family,  his  craft — a  strong,  bluff,  ten- 
der man. 

"Those  were  the  decorous  days  of  the  old  tradition,  and 
Page's  entrance  into  the  'atmosphere'  of  Park  Street  has 
taken  on  the  dignity  of  legend.  There  were  all  kinds  of 
signs  and  portents,  as  the  older  denizens  will  tell  you. 
Strange  breezes  floated  through  the  office,  electric  emana- 
tions, and  a  pervasive  scent  of  tobacco,  which — so  the  lo- 
cal historian  says — had  been  unknown  in  the  vicinity 
since  the  days  of  Walter  Raleigh,  except  for  the  literary 
aroma  of  Aldrich's  quarantined  sanctum  upstairs.  Page's 
coming  marked  the  end  of  small  ways.  His  first  require- 
ment was,  in  lieu  of  a  desk,  a  table  that  might  have  served 
a  family  of  twelve  for  Thanksgiving  dinner.  No  one 
could  imagine  what  that  vast,  polished  tableland  could 
serve  for  until  they  watched  the  editor  at  work.  Then 
they  saw.  Order  vanished  and  chaos  reigned.  Huge 
piles  of  papers,  letters,  articles,  reports,  books,  pamphlets, 
magazines,  congregated  themselves  as  if  by  magic.  To 
work  in  such  confusion  seemed  hopeless,  but  Page  eluded 
the  congestion  by  the  simple  expedient  of  moving  on. 
He  would  light  a  fresh  cigar,  give  the  editorial  chair  a 
hitch,  and  begin  his  work  in  front  of  a  fresh  expanse  of 
table,  with  no  clutter  of  the  past  to  disturb  the  new  day's 
litter. 

' '  The  motive  power  of  his  work  was  enthusiasm.  Never 
was  more  generous  welcome  given  to  a  newcomer  than 
Page  held  out  to  the  successful  manuscript  of  an  unknown. 
I  remember,  though  I  heard  the  news  second  hand  at  the 
time,  what  a  day  it  was  in  the  office  when  the  first  manu- 
script from  the  future  author  of  'To  Have  and  To  Hold,' 
came  in  from  an  untried  Southern  girl.  He  walked  up  and 
down,  reading  paragraphs  aloud  and  slapping  the  crisp 


JOURNALISM  57 

manuscript  to  enforce  his  commendation.  To  take  a 
humbler  instance,  I  recall  the  words  of  over  generous 
praise  with  which  he  greeted  the  first  paper  I  ever  sent 
to  an  editor  quite  as  clearly  as  I  remember  the  monstrous 
effort  which  had  brought  it  into  being.  Sometimes  he 
would  do  a  favoured  manuscript  the  honour  of  taking  it 
out  to  lunch  in  his  coat-pocket,  and  an  associate  vividly 
recalls  eggs,  coffee,  and  pie  in  a  near-by  restaurant,  while, 
in  a  voice  that  could  be  heard  by  the  remotest  lunchers, 
Page  read  passages  which  many  of  them  were  too  startled 
to  appreciate.  He  was  not  given  to  overrating,  but  it 
was  not  in  his  nature  to  understate.  'I  tell  you,'  said  he, 
grumbling  over  some  unfortunate  proof-sheets  from  Man- 
hattan, 'there  isn't  one  man  in  New  York  who  can  write 
English — not  from  the  Battery  to  Harlem  Heights.'  And 
if  the  faults  were  moral  rather  than  literary,  his  disap- 
proval grew  in  emphasis.  There  is  more  than  tradition 
in  the  tale  of  the  Negro  who,  presuming  on  Page's  deep 
interest  in  his  race,  brought  to  his  desk  a  manuscript 
copied  word  for  word  from  a  published  source.  Page 
recognized  the  deception,  and  seizing  the  rascal's  collar 
with  a  firm  editorial  grip,  rejected  the  poem,  and  ejected 
the  poet,  with  an  energy  very  invigorating  to  the  ancient 
serenities  of  the  office. 

"Page  was  always  effervescent  with  ideas.  Like  an 
editor  who  would  have  made  a  good  fisherman,  he  used  to 
say  that  you  had  to  cast  a  dozen  times  before  you  could 
get  a  strike.  He  was  forever  in  those  days  sending  out 
ideas  and  suggestions  and  invitations  to  write.  The  re- 
sult was  electric,  and  the  magazine  became  with  a  sudden- 
ness (of  which  only  an  editor  can  appreciate  the  wonder) 
a  storehouse  of  animating  thoughts.  He  avoided  the 
mistake  common  to  our  craft  of  editing  a  magazine  for 
the  immediate  satisfaction  of  his  colleagues.  'Don't 


58         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS  OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

write  for  the  office,'  he  would  say.  'Write  for  outside,' 
and  so  his  magazine  became  a  living  thing.  His  phrase 
suggests  one  special  gift  that  Page  had,  for  which  his  pro- 
fession should  do  him  especial  honour.  He  was  able, 
quite  beyond  the  powers  of  any  man  of  my  acquaintance, 
to  put  compendiously  into  words  the  secrets  of  successful 
editing.  It  was  capital  training  just  to  hear  him  talk. 
yNever  save  a  feature,'  he  used  to  say.  'Always  work  for 
/the  next  number.  Forget  the  others.  Spend  everything 
/just  on  that.'  And  to  those  who  know,  there  is  divina- 
/  tion  in  the  principle.  Again  he  understood  instinctively 
that  to  write  well  a  man  must  not  only  have  something 
to  say,  but  must  long  to  say  it.  A  highly  intelligent 
representative  of  the  coloured  race  came  to  him  with  a 
philosophic  essay.,  Page  would  have  none  of  it.  '  I  know 
what  you  are  thinking  of,'  said  Page.  'You  are  thinking 
of  the  barriers  we  set  up  against  you,  and  the  handicap 
of  your  lot.  If  you  will  write  what  it  feels  like  to  be  a 
Negro,  I  will  print  that.'  The  result  was  a  paper  which  has 
seemed  to  me  the  most  moving  expression  of  the  hopeless 
hope  of  the  race  I  know  of. 

"Page  was  generous  in  his  cooperation.  He  never  drew 
a  rigid  line  about  his  share  in  any  enterprise,  but  gave  and 
took  help  with  each  and  all.  A  lover  of  good  English, 
with  an  honest  passion  for  things  tersely  said,  Page  es- 
teemed good  journalism  far  above  any  second-rate  mani- 
festation of  more  pretentious  forms ;  but  many  of  us  will 
regret  that  he  was  not  privileged  to  find  some  outlet  for 
his  energies  in  which  aspiration  for  real  literature  might 
have  played  an  ampler  part.  For  the  literature  of  the 
past  Page  had  great  respect,  but  his  interest  was  ever  in 
the  present  and  the  future.  He  was  forever  fulminating 
against  bad  writing,  and  hated  the  ignorant  and  slipshod 
work  of  the  hack  almost  as  much  as  he  despised  the  sham 


JOURNALISM  59 

of  the  man  who  affected  letters,  the  dabbler  and  the  poet- 
aster. His  taste  was  for  the  roast  beef  of  literature,  not 
for  the  side  dishes  and  the  trimmings,  and  his  appreciation 
of  the  substantial  work  of  others  was  no  surer  than  his 
instinct  for  his  own  performance.  He  was  an  admirable 
writer  of  exposition,  argument,  and  narrative — solid  and 
thoughtful,  but  never  dull.  ...  I  came  into  close 
relations  with  him  and  from  him  I  learned  more  of  my 
profession  than  from  any  one  I  have  ever  known.  Scores 
of  other  men  would  say  the  same." 

But  the  fact  that  a  new  hand  had  seized  the  Atlantic  was 
apparent  in  other  places  than  in  the  Atlantic  office  itself. 
One  of  Page's  contributors  of  the  Forum  days,  Mr. 
Courtney  DeKalb,  happened  to  be  in  St.  Louis  when  the 
first  number  of  the  magazine  under  its  new  editor  made  its 
appearance.  Mr.  DeKalb  had  been  out  of  the  country  for 
some  time  and  knew  nothing  of  the  change.  Happening 
accidentally  to  pick  up  the  Atlantic,  the  table  of  contents 
caught  his  eye.  It  bore  the  traces  of  an  unmistakable 
hand.  Only  one  man,  he  said  to  himself,  could  assemble 
such  a  group  as  that,  and  above  all,  only  Page  could  give 
such  an  enticing  turn  of  the  titles.  He  therefore  sat 
down  and  wrote  his  old  friend  congratulating  him  on  his 
accession  to  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  The  change  that  now 
took  place  was  indeed  a  conspicuous,  almost  a  startling 
one.  The  Atlantic  retained  all  its  old  literary  flavour,  for 
to  its  traditions  Page  was  as  much  devoted  as  the  highest 
caste  Bostonian;  it  still  gave  up  much  of  its  space  to  a 
high  type  of  fiction,  poetry,  and  reviews  of  contemporary 
literature,  but  every  number  contained  also  an  assortment 
of  articles  which  celebrated  the  prevailing  activities  of 
men  and  women  in  all  worth-while  fields  of  effort.  There 
were  discussions  of  present-day  politics,  and  these  even 


60         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

became  personal  dissections  of  presidential  candidates; 
there  were  articles  on  the  racial  characters  of  the  American 
population :  Theodore  Roosevelt  was  permitted  to  discuss 
the  New  York  police;  Woodrow  Wilson  to  pass  in  review 
the  several  elements  that  made  the  Nation;  Booker  T. 
Washington  to  picture  the  awakening  of  the  Negro ;  John 
Muir  to  enlighten  Americans  upon  a  national  beauty  and 
wealth  of  which  they  had  been  woefully  ignorant,  their 
forests ;  William  Allen  White  to  describe  certain  aspects  of 
his  favourite  Kansas ;  E.  L.  Godkin  to  review  the  dangers 
and  the  hopes  of  American  democracy ;  Jacob  Riis  to  tell 
about  the  Battle  with  the  Slum ;  and  W.  G.  Frost  to  reveal 
for  the  first  time  the  archaic  civilization  of  the  Kentucky 
mountaineers.  The  latter  article  illustrated  Page's  genius 
at  rewriting  titles.  Mr.  Frost's  theme  was  that  these 
Kentucky  mountaineers  were  really  Elizabethan  survi- 
vals; that  their  dialect,  their  ballads,  their  habits  were 
really  a  case  of  arrested  development;  that  by  studying 
them  present-day  Americans  could  get  a  picture  of  their 
distant  forbears.  Page  gave  vitality  to  the  presentation 
by  changing  a  commonplace  title  to  this  one:  "Our  Con- 
temporary Ancestors." 

There  were  those  who  were  offended  by  Page 's  willing- 
ness to  seek  inspiration  on  the  highways  and  byways  and 
even  in  newspapers,  for  not  infrequently  he  would  find 
hidden  away  in  a  corner  an  idea  that  would  result  in 
valuable  magazine  matter.  On  one  occasion  at  least  this 
practice  had  important  literary  consequences.  One  day 
he  happened  to  read  that  a  Mrs.  Robert  Hanning  had  died 
in  Toronto,  the  account  casually  mentioning  the  fact  that 
Mrs.  Hanning  was  the  youngest  sister  of  Thomas  Carlyle. 
Page  handed  this  clipping  to  a  young  assistant,  and  told 
him  to  take  the  first  train  to  Canada.  The  editor  could 
easily  divine  that  a  sister  of  Carlyle,  expatriated  for  forty- 


JOURNALISM  61 

six  years  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  must  have  received 
a  large  number  of  letters  from  her  brother,  and  it  was 
safe  to  assume  that  they  had  been  carefully  preserved. 
Such  proved  to  be  the  fact;  and  a  new  volume  of  Carlyle 
letters,  of  somewhat  more  genial  character  than  the  other 
collections,  was  the  outcome  of  this  visit.1  And  another 
fruit  of  this  journalistic  habit  was  "The  Memoirs  of  a 
Revolutionist,"  by  Prince  Peter  Kropotkin.  In  1897 
the  great  Russian  nihilist  was  lecturing  in  Roston.  Page 
met  him,  learned  from  his  own  lips  his  story,  and  per- 
suaded him  to  put  it  in  permanent  form.  This  willing- 
ness of  Page  to  admit  such  a  revolutionary  person  into 
the  pages  of  the  Atlantic  caused  some  excitement  hi 
conventional  circles.  In  fact,  it  did  take  some  courage, 
but  Page  never  hesitated ;  the  man  was  of  heroic  mould, 
he  had  a  great  story  to  tell,  he  wielded  an  engaging  pen, 
and  his  purposes  were  high-minded.  A  great  book  of 
memoirs  was  the  result. 

Mr.  Sedgwick  refers  above  to  Page's  editorial  fervour 
when  Miss  Mary  Johnston's  "Prisoners  of  Hope"  first 
fell  out  of  the  blue  sky  into  his  Roston  office.  Page's 
joy  was  not  less  keen  because  the  young  author  was  a 
Virginia  girl,  and  because  she  had  discovered  that  the  early 
period  of  Virginia  history  was  a  field  for  romance.  When,  a 
few  months  afterward,  Page  was  casting  about  for  an 
Atlantic  serial,  Miss  Johnston  and  this  Virginia  field 
seemed  to  be  an  especially  favourable  prospect.  "Pris- 
oners of  Hope"  had  been  published  as  a  book  and  had 
made  a  good  success,  but  Miss  Johnston's  future  still 
lay  ahead  of  her.  With  Page  to  think  meant  to  act,  and 
so,  instead  of  writing  a  formal  letter,  he  at  once  jumped  on 
a  train  for  Rirmingham,  Alabama,  where  Miss  Johnston 

l"  Letters  of  Thomas  Carlyle  to  his  Youngest  Sister."  Edited  by  Charles  Town- 
send  Copeland.     Houghton,  Mifilin  &  Company,  1899. 


62         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

was  then  living.  "I  remember  quite  distinctly  that  first 
meeting,"  writes  Miss  Johnston.  "The  day  was  rainy. 
Standing  at  my  window  I  watched  Mr.  Page — a  charac- 
teristic figure,  air  and  walk — approach  the  house.  When 
a  few  minutes  later  I  met  him  he  was  simplicity  and  kind- 
liness itself.  This  was  my  first  personal  contact  with 
publishers  (my  publishers)  or  with  editors  of  anything 
so  great  as  the  Atlantic.  My  heart  beat!  But  he  was 
friendly  and  Southern.  I  told  him  what  I  had  done  upon 
a  new  story.  He  was  going  on  that  night.  Might  he 
take  the  manuscript  with  him  and  read  it  upon  the  train? 
It  might — he  couldn't  say  positively,  of  course — but  it 
might  have  serial  possibilities.  I  was  only  too  glad 
for  him  to  have  the  manuscript.  I  forget  just  how  many 
chapters  I  had  completed.  But  it  was  not  quite  in  order. 
Could  I  get  it  so  in  a  few  hours?  In  that  case  he  would 
send  a  messenger  for  it  from  the  hotel.  Yes,  I  could. 
Very  good !  A  little  further  talk  and  he  left  with  a  strong 
handshake.  Three  or  four  hours  later  he  had  the  manu- 
script and  took  it  with  him  from  Birmingham  that  night." 

Page's  enterprising  visit  had  put  into  his  hands  the 
half-finished  manuscript  of  a  story,  "To  Have  and  to 
Hold,"  which,  when  printed  in  the  Atlantic,  more  than 
doubled  its  circulation,  and  which,  when  made  into  a  book, 
proved  one  of  the  biggest  successes  since  "Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin." 

Page's  most  independent  stroke  in  his  Atlantic  days 
came  with  the  outbreak  of  the  Spanish-American  War. 
Boston  was  then  the  headquarters  of  a  national  mood 
which  has  almost  passed  out  of  popular  remembrance. 
Its  spokesmen  called  themselves  anti-imperialists.  The 
theory  back  of  their  protest  was  that  the  American  declar- 
ation of  war  on  Spain  was  not  only  the  wanton  attack  of 
a  great  bully  upon  a  feeble  little  country :  it  was  something 


JOURNALISM  63 

that  was  bound  to  have  deplorable  consequences.  The 
United  States  was  breaking  with  its  past  and  engaging 
in  European  quarrels;  as  a  consequence  of  the  war  it 
would  acquire  territories  and  embark  on  a  career  of 
"imperialism."  Page  was  impatient  at  this  kind  of 
twaddle.  He  declared  that  the  Spanish  War  was  a 
"necessary  act  of  surgery  for  the  health  of  civilization." 
He  did  not  believe  that  a  nation,  simply  because  it  was 
small,  should  be  permitted  to  maintain  indefinitely  a 
human  slaughter  house  at  the  door  of  the  United  States. 
The  Atlantic  for  June,  1898,  gave  the  so-called  anti- 
imperialists  a  thrill  of  horror.  On  the  cover  appeared 
the  defiantly  flying  American  flag;  the  first  article  was  a 
vigorous  and  approving  presentation  of  the  American  case 
against  Spain;  though  this  was  unsigned,  its  incisive  style 
at  once  betrayed  the  author.  The  Atlantic  had  printed 
the  American  flag  on  its  cover  during  the  Civil  War; 
but  certain  New  Englanders  thought  that  this  latest 
struggle,  in  its  motives  and  its  proportions,  was  hardly 
entitled  to  the  distinction.  Page  declared,  however,  that 
the  Spanish  War  marked  a  new  period  in  history ;  and  he 
endorsed  the  McKinley  Administration,  not  only  in  the 
war  itself,  but  in  its  consequences,  particularly  the  annexa- 
tion of  the  Philippine  Islands. 

Page  greatly  enjoyed  life  in  Boston  and  Cambridge. 
The  Atlantic  was  rapidly  growing  in  circulation  and  in 
influence,  and  the  new  friends  that  its  editor  was  making 
were  especially  to  his  taste.  He  now  had  a  family  of  four 
children,  three  boys  and  one  girl — and  their  bringing  up 
and  education,  as  he  said  at  this  time,  constituted  his 
real  occupation.  So  far  as  he  could  see,  in  the  summer 
of  1899,  he  was  permanently  established  in  life.  But 
larger  events  in  the  publishing  world  now  again  pulled  him 
back  to  New  York. 


CHAPTER  III 

"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN' 


IN  JULY,  1899,  the  publishing  community  learned  that 
financial  difficulties  were  seriously  embarrassing  the 
great  house  of  Harper.  For  nearly  a  century  this  estab- 
lishment had  maintained  a  position  almost  of  preemi- 
nence among  American  publishers.  Three  generations 
of  Harpers  had  successively  presided  over  its  destinies; 
its  magazines  and  books  had  become  almost  a  household 
necessity  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States,  and  its  authors 
included  many  of  the  names  most  celebrated  in  American 
letters.  The  average  American  could  no  more  associate 
the  idea  of  bankruptcy  with  this  great  business  than  with 
the  federal  Treasury  itself.  Yet  this  incredible  disaster 
had  virtually  taken  place.  At  this  time  the  public  knew 
nothing  of  the  impending  ruin;  the  fact  was,  however, 
that,  in  July,  1899,  the  banking  house  of  J.  P.  Morgan  & 
Company  practically  controlled  this  property.  This  was 
the  situation  which  again  called  Page  to  New  York. 

In  the  preceding  year  Mr.  S.  S.  McClure,  whose  recent 
success  as  editor  and  publisher  had  been  little  less  than  a 
sensation,  had  joined  forces  with  Mr.  Frank  N.  Double- 
day,  and  organized  the  new  firm  of  Doubleday  &  Mc- 
Clure. This  business  was  making  rapid  progress;  and 
that  it  would  soon  become  one  of  the  leading  American 
publishing  houses  was  already  apparent.  It  was  perhaps 
not  unnatural,  therefore,  that  Mr.  J.  Pierpont  Morgan, 
scanning  the  horizon  for  the  men  who  might  rescue  the 

64 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  65 

Harper  concern  from  approaching  disaster,  should  have 
had  his  attention  drawn  to  Mr.  McClure  and  Mr.  Double- 
day.  "The  failure  of  Harper  &  Brothers,"  Mr.  Morgan 
said  in  a  published  statement,  "would  be  a  national  ca- 
lamity." One  morning,  therefore,  a  member  of  the  Harper 
firm  called  upon  Mr.  McClure.  Without  the  slight- 
est hesitation  he  unfolded  the  Harper  situation  to  his 
astonished  contemporary.  The  solution  proposed  was 
more  astonishing  still.  This  was  that  Mr.  Doubleday  and 
Mr.  McClure  should  amalgamate  their  young  and  vig- 
orous business  with  the  Harper  enterprise  and  become  the 
active  managers  of  the  new  corporation.  Both  Mr.  Mc- 
Clure and  Mr.  Doubleday  were  comparatively  young  men, 
and  the  magnitude  of  the  proposed  undertaking  at  first 
rather  staggered  them.  It  was  as  though  a  small  inde- 
pendent steel  maker  should  suddenly  be  invited  to  take 
over  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation.  Mr.  McClure, 
characteristically  impetuous  and  daring,  wished  to  accept 
the  invitation  outright;  Mr.  Doubleday,  however,  sug- 
gested a  period  of  probation.  The  outcome  was  that  the 
two  men  offered  to  take  charge  of  Harper  &  Brothers 
for  a  few  months,  and  then  decide  whether  they  wished 
to  make  the  association  a  permanent  one.  One  thing  was 
immediately  apparent;  Messrs.  Doubleday  and  McClure, 
able  as  they  were,  would  need  the  help  of  the  best  talent 
available  in  the  work  that  lay  ahead.  The  first  man 
to  whom  they  turned  was  Page,  who  presently  left  Boston 
and  took  up  his  business  abode  at  Franklin  Square.  The 
rumble  of  the  elevated  road  was  somewhat  distract- 
ing after  the  four  quiet  years  in  Park  Street,  but  the 
new  daily  routine  was  not  lacking  in  interest.  The 
Harper  experiment,  however,  did  not  end  as  Mr.  Morgan 
had  hoped.  After  a  few  months  Messrs.  Doubleday, 
Page  and  McClure  withdrew,  and  left  the  work  of  rescue 


66         THE    LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

to  be  performed  by  Mr.  George  Harvey,  who,  curiously 
enough,  succeeded  Page,  twenty-one  years  afterward,  in 
an  even  more  important  post — that  of  ambassador  to 
the  Court  of  St.  James's.  The  one  important  outcome  of 
the  Harper  episode,  so  far  as  Page  was  concerned,  was  the 
forming  of  a  close  business  and  personal  association  with 
Mr.  Frank  N.  Doubleday.  As  soon  as  the  two  men  defi- 
nitely decided  not  to  assume  the  Harper  responsibility, 
therefore,  they  joined  forces  and  founded  the  firm  of 
Doubleday,  Page  &  Company.  Page  now  had  the  op- 
portunity which  he  had  long  wished  for;  the  mere  editing 
of  magazines,  even  magazines  of  such  an  eminent  charac- 
ter as  the  Forum  and  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  could  hardly 
satisfy  his  ambition;  he  yearned  to  possess  something 
which  he  could  call  his  own,  at  least  in  part. 

The  life  of  an  editor  has  its  unsatisfactory  aspect,  unless 
the  editor  himself  has  an  influential  ownership  in  his 
periodical.  Page  now  found  his  opportunity  to  establish 
a  monthly  magazine  which  he  could  regard  as  his  own  in 
both  senses.  He  was  its  untrammelled  editor,  and  also, 
in  part,  its  proprietor.  All  editors  and  writers  will  sym- 
pathize with  the  ideas  expressed  in  a  letter  written  about 
this  time  to  Page's  friend,  Mr.  William  Roscoe  Thayer, 
already  distinguished  as  the  historian  of  Italian  unity  and 
afterward  to  win  fame  as  the  biographer  of  Cavour  and 
John  Hay.  When  the  first  number  of  the  World's  Work 
appeared  Mr.  Thayer  wrote,  expressing  a  slight  disap- 
pointment that  its  leading  tendency  was  journalistic 
rather  than  literary  and  intellectual.  "When  you  edited 
the  Forum,"  wrote  Mr.  Thayer,  "I  perceived  that  no 
such  talent  for  editing  had  been  seen  in  America  before, 
and  when,  a  little  later,  you  rejuvenated  the  Atlantic, 
making  it  for  a  couple  of  years  the  best  periodical  printed 
in  English,  I  felt  that  you  had  a  great  mission  before  you 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  67 

as  evoker  and  editor  of  the  best  literary  work  and  weight- 
iest thought  on  important  topics  of  our  foremost  men." 
He  had  hoped  to  see  a  magnified  Atlantic,  and  the  new 
publication,  splendid  as  it  was,  seemed  to  be  of  rather 
more  popular  character  than  the  publications  with  which 
Page  had  previously  been  associated.  Page  met  this 
challenge  in  his  usual  hearty  fashion. 

To  William  Roscoe  Thayer 

34  Union  Square  East,  New  York, 

December  5, 1900. 
MY  DEAR  THAYER: 

The  World's  Work  has  brought  me  nothing  so  good  as 
your  letter  of  yesterday.  When  Mrs.  Page  read  it, 
she  shouted  "Now  that's  it!"  For  "it"  read  "truth," 
and  you  will  have  her  meaning  and  mine.  My  thanks 
you  may  be  sure  you  have,  in  great  and  earnest  abun- 
dance. 

You  surprise  me  in  two  ways — (1)  that  you  think  as 
well  of  the  magazine  as  you  do.  If  it  have  half  the  force 
and  earnestness  that  you  say  it  has,  how  happy  I  shall  be, 
for  then  it  will  surely  bring  something  to  pass.  The 
other  way  in  which  you  surprise  me  is  by  the  flattering 
things  that  you  say  about  my  conduct  of  the  Atlantic. 
Alas!  it  was  not  what  you  in  your  kind  way  say — no, 
no. 

Of  course  the  World's  Work  is  not  yet  by  any  means  what 
I  hope  to  make  it.  But  it  has  this  incalculable  advantage 
(to  me)  over  every  other  magazine  in  existence :  it  is  mine 
(mine  and  my  partners',  i.  e.,  partly  mine),  and  I  shall  not 
work  to  build  up  a  good  piece  of  machinery  and  then 
be  turned  out  to  graze  as  an  old  horse  is.  This  of  course, 
is  selfish  and  personal — not  wholly  selfish  either,  I  think. 
I  threw  down  the  Atlantic  for  this  reason:  (Consider  the 


68         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

history  of  its  editors)  Lowell1  complained  bitterly  that  he 
was  never  rewarded  properly  for  the  time  and  work  he  did ; 
Fields  was  (in  a  way)  one  of  its  owners;  it  was  sold  out 
from  under  Howells,  etc.,  etc.  I  might  (probably  should) 
have  been  at  the  mercy  completely  of  owners  some  day  who 
would  have  dismissed  me  for  a  younger  man.  Nearly  all 
hired  editors  suffer  this  fate.  My  good  friends  in  Boston 
were  sincere  in  thinking  that  my  day  of  doom  would 
never  come;  but  they  didn't  offer  me  any  guarantee — part 
ownership,  for  instance;  and  the  years  go  swiftly.  I 
could  afford,  of  my  own  volition,  to  leave  the  Atlantic.  I 
couldn  't  afford  to  take  permanently  the  risks  that  a  hired 
editor  must  take.  Nor  should  I  ever  again  have  turned 
my  hand  to  such  a  task  except  on  a  magazine  of  my  own. 
I  should  have  sought  other  employment.  There  are  many 
easier  and  better  and  more  influential  things  to  do — yet; 
ten  years  hence  I  might  have  been  too  old.  Harry  Hough- 
ton2  has  an  old  horse  thirty  years  old.  I  used  to  see  him 
grazing  sometimes  and  hear  his  master's  self-congratula- 
tory explanation  of  his  own  kindness  to  that  faithful 
beast.  In  the  office  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company 
there  is  an  old  man  whom  I  used  to  see  every  day — 
pensioned,  grazing.  Then  I  would  go  home  and  see  four 
bright  children.  Three  of  them  are  now  away  from  home 
at  school;  and  the  four  cost  a  pretty  penny  to  educate. 
My  income  had  been  the  same  for  ten  years — or  very 
nearly  the  same.  If  I  was  a  "magic"  editor,  I  confess  I 
didn't  see  the  magic;  and  there  is  no  power  under  Heaven 
or  in  it  that  can  prove  to  me  that  I  ought  to  keep  on  mak- 
ing magazines  as  a  hired  man — without  the  common 


VA.  memorandum  of  an  old  Atlantic  balance  sheet  discloses  that  James  Russell 
Lowell's  salary  as  editor  was  $1,500  a  year. 

2A  member  of  the  firm  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company. 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  69 

security  of  permanent  service  for  lack  of  which  nearly  all 
my  predecessors  lost  their  chance. 

But  this  is  not  all,  nor  half.  A  man  ought  to  express 
himself,  ought  to  live  his  own  life,  say  his  own  little  say, 
before  silence  comes.  The  "say"  may  be  bad — a  mere 
yawp,  and  silence  might  be  more  becoming.  But  the 
same  argument  would  make  a  man  dissatisfied  with  his 
own  nose  if  it  happened  to  be  ugly.  It 's  his  nose,  and  he 
must  content  himself.  So  it's  his  yawp  and  he  must  let 
it  go. 

I  'm  not  going  to  make  the  new  magazine  my  own  mega- 
phone— you  may  be  sure  of  that.  It  will  nevertheless 
contain  my  general  interpretation  of  things,  in  which  I 
ewear  I  do  believe!  The  first  thing,  of  course,  is  to  es- 
tablish it.  Then  it  can  be  shaped  more  nearly  into  what 
I  wish  it  to  become.  If  it  seem  unmannerly,  aggressive, 
I  know  no  other  way  to  make  it  heard.  If  it  died,  then 
the  game  would  be  up.  Well,  we  seem  to  have  established 
it  at  once.  It  promises  not  to  cost  us  a  penny  of  invest- 
ment. 

Now,  the  magazines  need  new  topics.  They  have  all 
threshed  over  old  straw  for  many  years.  There  is  one  new 
subject,  to  my  thinking  worth  all  the  old  ones:  the  new 
impulse  in  American  life,  the  new  feeling  of  nationality, 
our  coming  to  realize  ourselves.  To  my  mind  there  is 
greater  promise  in  democracy  than  men  of  any  preceding 
period  ever  dared  dream  of — aggressive  democracy — 
growth  by  action.  Our  writers  (the  few  we  have)  are  yet 
in  the  pre-democratic  era.  When  men's  imaginations  lay 
hold  on  the  things  that  already  begin  to  appear  above  the 
horizon,  we  shall  have  something  worth  reading.  At 
present  I  can  do  no  more  than  bawl  out,  "See!  here  are 
new  subjects."  One  of  these  days  somebody  will  come 
along  who  can  write  about  them.  I  have  started  out 


70         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

without  a  writer.  Fiske  is  under  contract,  James  would 
give  nothing  more  to  the  Atlantic,  you  were  ill  (I  thank 
Heaven  you  are  no  longer  so)  the  second-  and  third-rate 
essayists  have  been  bought  by  mere  Wall  Street  pub- 
lishers. Beyond  these  are  the  company  of  story  tellers 
and  beyond  them  only  a  dreary  waste  of  dead-level  un- 
imaginative men  and  women.  I  can  (soon)  get  all  that 
I  could  ever  have  got  in  the  Atlantic  and  new  ones  (I 
know  they'll  come)  whom  I  could  never  have  got  there. 
You'll  see — within  a  year  or  two — by  far  a  better  mag- 
azine than  I  have  ever  made ;  and  you  and  I  will  differ  in 
nothing  unless  you  feel  despair  about  the  breakdown  of 
certain  democratic  theories,  which  I  think  were  always 
mere  theories.  Let  'em  go!  The  real  thing,  which  is  life 
andjiction)  is  better. 

Heartily  and  always  your  grateful  friend, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

Thus  the  fact  that  Page's  new  magazine  was  intended 
for  a  popular  audience  was  not  the  result  of  accident,  but 
of  design.  It  represented  a  periodical  plan  which  had  long 
been  taking  shape  in  Page's  mind.  The  things  that  he 
had  been  doing  for  the  Forum  and  the  Atlantic  he  aspired 
to  do  for  a  larger  audience  than  that  to  which  publications 
of  this  character  could  appeal.  Scholar  though  Page  was, 
and  lover  of  the  finest  things  in  literature  that  he  had  al- 
ways been,  yet  this  sympathy  and  interest  had  always  lain 
with  the  masses.  Perhaps  it  is  impossible  to  make  lit- 
erature democratic,  but  Page  believed  that  he  would  be 
genuinely  serving  the  great  cause  that  was  nearest  his  heart 
if  he  could  spread  wide  the  facts  of  the  modern  world,  es- 
pecially the  facts  of  America,  and  if  he  could  clothe 
the  expression  in  language  which,  while  always  dignified 
and  even  "literary,"  would  still  be  sufficiently  touched 


c 


THE   FORGOTTEN  MAN"  71 


with  the  vital,  the  picturesque,  and  the  "human,"  to 
make  his  new  publication  appeal  to  a  wide  audience  of 
intelligent,  everyday  Americans.  It  was  thus  part  of 
his  general  programme  of  improving  the  status  of  the 
average  man,  and  it  formed  a  logical  part  of  his  philos- 
ophy of  human  advancement.  For  the,  only  acceptable 
measure  of  any  civilization,  Page  believed,  wasthe 
extent  to  wTiicTi  it  improved  the  condition  of  the  com- 
mon citizen.  A  few  cultured  and  university-trained  men  at 
the  top;  a  few  ancient  families  living  in  luxury;  a  few 
painters  and  poets  and  statesmen  and  generals;  these 
things,  in  Page's  view,  did  not  constitute  a  satisfactory 
state  of  society ;  the  real  test  was  the  extent  to  which  the 
masses  participated  in  education,  in  the  necessities  and 
comforts  of  existence,  in  the  right  o?  self-evolution  and 
self-expression,  in  that  "equality  of  opportunity,"  which, 
Page  never  wearied  of  repeating,  "was  the  basis  of  .social 
progress."  The  mere  right  to  vote  and  to  hold  office  was 
not  democracy;  parliamentary  majorities  and  political 
caucuses  were  not  democracy — at  the  best  these  things  were 
only  details  and  not  the  most  important  ones;  democ- 
racy was  the  right  of  every  man  to  enjoy,  in  accordance 
with  his  aptitudes  of  character  and  mentality,  the  material 
and  spiritual  opportunities  that  nature  and  science  had 
placed  at  the  disposition  of  mankind.  This  democratic 
creed  had  now  become  the  dominating  interest  of  Page 's 
life.  From  this  time  on  it  consumed  all  his  activities. 
His  new  magazine  set  itself  first  of  all  to  interpret  the 
American  panorama  from  this  point  of  view;  to  describe 
the  progress  that  the  several  parts  of  the  country  were 
making  in  the  several  manifestations  of  democracy — 
education,  agriculture,  industry,  social  life,  politics — 
and  the  importance  that  Page  attached  to  them  was 
practically  in  the  order  named.  Above  all  it  concerned 


72         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

itself  with  the  men  and  women  who  were  accomplishing 
most  in  the  definite  realization  of  this  great  end. 

And  now  also  Page  began  to  carry  his  activities  far  be- 
yond mere  print.  In  his  early  residence  in  New  York,  from 
1885  to  1895,  he  had  always  taken  his  part  in  public  move- 
ments ;  he  had  been  a  vital  spirit  in  the  New  York  Reform 
Club,  which  was  engaged  mainly  in  advocating  the  Cleve- 
land tariff;  he  had  always  shown  a  willingness  to  experi- 
ment with  new  ideas ;  at  one  time  he  had  mingled  with 
Socialists  and  he  had  been  quite  captivated  by  the  personal 
and  literary  charm  of  Henry  George.  After  1900,  how- 
ever, Page  became  essentially  a  public  man,  though  not  in 
the  political  sense.  His  work  as  editor  and  writer  was 
merely  one  expression  of  the  enthusiasms  that  occupied 
his  mind.  From  1900  until  1913,  when  he  left  for  England, 
life  meant  for  him  mainly  an  effort  to  spread  the  demo- 
cratic ideal,  as  he  conceived  it;  concretely  it  represented  a 
constant  campaign  for  improving  the  fundamental  oppor- 
tunities and  the  everyday  social  advantages  of  the  masses. 

ii 

Inevitably  the  condition  of  the  people  in  his  own  home- 
land enlisted  Page's  sympathy,  for  he  had  learned  of  their 
necessities  at  first  hand.  The  need  of  education  had 
powerfully  impressed  him  even  as  a  boy.  At  twenty- 
three  he  began  writing  articles  for  the  Raleigh  Observer, 
and  practically  all  of  them  were  pleas  for  the  education  of 
the  Southern  child.  His  subsequent  activities  of  this 
kind,  as  editor  of  the  State  Chronicle,  have  already  been 
described.  The  American  from  other  parts  of  the  country 
is  rather  shocked  when  he  first  learns  of  the  backwardness 
of  education  in  the  South  a  generation  ago.  In  any  real 
sense  there  was  no  publicly  supported  system  for  training 
the  child.  A  few  wretched  hovels,  scattered  through  a 


( 


THE   FORGOTTEN   MAN"  73 


sparsely  settled  country,  served  as  school  houses;  a  few 
uninspiring  and  neglected  women,  earning  perhaps  $50 
or  $75  a  year,  did  weary  duty  as  teachers;  a  few  groups 
of  anemic  and  listless  children,  attending  school  for  only 
forty  days  a  year — such  was  the  preparation  for  life  which 
most  Southern  states  gave  the  less  fortunate  of  their 
citizens.  The  glaring  fact  that  emphasized  the  outcome 
of  this  official  carelessness  was  an  illiteracy,  among  white 
men  and  women,  of  26  per  cent.  Among  the  Negroes  it 
was  vastly  larger. 

The  first  exhortation  to  reform  came  from  the  Wautauga 
Club,  which  Page  had  organized  in  Raleigh  in  1884. 
After  Page  had  left  his  native  state,  other  men  began 
preaching  the  same  crusade.  Perhaps  the  greatest  of 
those  advocates  whom  the  South  loves  to  refer  to  as 
"educational  statesmen"  was  Dr.  Charles  D.  Mclver, 
of  Greensboro,  N.  C.  Mclver 's  personality  and  career 
had  an  heroic  quality  all  their  own.  Back  in  the  'eighties 
Mclver  and  Edwin  A.  Alderman,  now  President  of  the 
University  of  Virginia,  endured  all  kinds  of  hardships  and 
buffetings  in  the  cause  of  popular  education ;  they  stumped 
the  state,  much  like  political  campaigners,  preaching  the 
strange  new  gospel  in  mountain  cabin,  in  village  church, 
at  the  cart's  tail — all  in  an  attempt  to  arouse  their 
lethargic  countrymen  to  the  duty  of  laying  a  small  tax 
to  save  their  children  from  illiteracy.  Some  day  the  story 
of  Mclver  and  Alderman  will  find  its  historian;  when  it 
does,  he  will  learn  that,  in  those  dark  ages,  one  of  their 
greatest  sources  of  inspiration  was  Walter  Page.  Mclver, 
a  great  burly  boy,  physically  and  intellectually,  so  full 
of  energy  that  existence  for  him  was  little  less  than 
an  unending  tornado,  so  full  of  zeal  that  any  other  oc- 
cupation than  that  of  training  the  neglected  seemed  a 
trifling  with  life,  so  sleepless  in  his  efforts  that,  at  the  age 


74         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

of  forty-five,  he  one  day  dropped  dead  while  travelling 
on  a  railroad  train;  Alderman,  a  man  of  finer  culture, 
quieter  in  his  methods,  an  orator  of  polish  and  restraint, 
but  an  advocate  vigorous  in  the  prosecution  of  the  great 
end;  and  Page,  living  faraway  in  the  North,  but  pumping 
his  associates  full  of  courage  and  enthusiasm — these  were 
the  three  guardsmen  of  this  new  battle  for  the  elevation 
of  the  white  and  black  men  of  the  South.  Mclver's 
great  work  was  the  State  Normal  College  for  Women, 
which,  amid  unparallelled  difficulties,  he  founded  for 
teaching  the  teachers  of  the  new  Southern  generation.  It 
was  at  this  institution  that  Page,  in  1897,  delivered  the 
address  which  gave  the  cause  of  Southern  education  that 
one  thing  which  is  worth  armies  to  any  struggling  re- 
form— a  phrase;  and  it  was  a  phrase  that  lived  in  the 
popular  mind  and  heart  and  summed  up,  in  a  way  that 
a  thousand  speeches  could  never  have  done,  the  great 
purpose  for  which  the  best  people  in  the  state  were  striv- 
ing. 

His  editorial  gift  for  title-making  now  served  Page  in 
good  stead.  "The  Forgotten  Man,"  which  was  the  head- 
ing of  his  address,  immediately  passed  into  the  common 
speech  of  the  South  and  even  at  this  day  inevitably  ap- 
pears in  all  discussions  of  social  progress.  It  was  again 
Page's  familiar  message  of  democracy,  of  improving  the 
condition  of  the  everyday  man,  woman,  and  child;  and 
the  message,  as  is  usually  the  case  in  all  incitements  to 
change,  involved  many  unpleasant  facts.  Page  had  first 
of  all  to  inform  his  fellow  Southerners  that  it  was  only  in 
the  South  that  "The  Forgotten  Man"  was  really  an  out- 
standing feature.  He  did  not  exist  in  New  England,  in 
the  Middle  States,  in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  or  in  the 
West,  or  existed  in  these  regions  to  so  slight  an  extent  that 
he  was  not  a  grave  menace  to  society.  But  in  the  South 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  75 

the  situation  was  quite  different.  And  for  this  fact  the 
explanation  was  found  in  history.  The  South  certainly 
could  not  fix  the  blame  upon  Nature.  In  natural  wealth 
— in  forests,  mines,  quarries,  rich  soil,  in  the  unlimited 
power  supplied  by  water  courses — the  Southern  States 
formed  perhaps  the  richest  region  in  the  country.  These 
things  North  Carolina  and  her  sister  communities  had 
not  developed ;  more  startling  still,  they  had  not  developed 
a  source  of  wealth  that  was  infinitely  greater  than  all  these 
combined;  they  had  not  developed  their  men  and  their 
women.  The  Southern  States  represented  the  purest 
"Anglo-Saxon"  strain  in  the  United  States;  to-day  in 
North  Carolina  only  one  person  in  four  hundred  is  of  "for- 
eign stock,"  and  a  voting  list  of  almost  any  town  contains 
practically  nothing  except  the  English  and  Scotch  names 
that  were  borne  by  the  original  settlers.  Yet  here  de- 
mocracy, in  any  real  sense,  had  scarcely  obtained  a  footing. 
The  region  which  had  given  Thomas  Jefferson  and  George 
Washington  to  the  world  was  still,  in  the  year  1897, 
organized  upon  an  essentially  aristocratic  basis.  The  con- 
ception of  education  which  prevailed  in  the  most  hide- 
bound aristocracies  of  Europe  still  ruled  south  of  the 
Potomac.  There  was  no  acceptance  of  that  fundamental 
American  doctrine  that  education  was  the  function  of  the 
state.  It  was  generally  regarded  as  the  luxury  of  the  rich 
and  the  socially  high  placed;  it  was  certainly  not  for  the 
poor ;  and  it  was  a  generally  accepted  view  that  those  who 
enjoyed  this  privilege  must  pay  for  it  out  of  their  own 
pockets.  Again  Page  returned  to  the  "mummy"  theme 
—the  fact  that  North  Carolina,  and  the  South  generally, 
were  too  much  ruled  by  "dead  men's"  hands.  The 
state  was  ruled  by  a  "little  aristocracy,  which,  in  its 
social  and  economic  character,  made  a  failure  and  left 
a  stubborn  crop  of  wrong  social  notions  behind  it — 


76         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

especially  about  education."  The  chief  backward  influ- 
ences were  the  stump  and  the  pulpit.  "From  the  days 
of  King  George  to  this  day,  the  politicians  of  North  Car- 
olina have  declaimed  against  taxes,  thus  laying  the  foun- 
dation of  our  poverty.  It  was  a  misfortune  for  us  that 
the  quarrel  with  King  George  happened  to  turn  upon 
the  question  of  taxation — so  great  was  the  dread  of 
taxation  that  was  instilled  into  us."  What  had  the  up- 
per classes  done  for  the  education  of  the  average  man? 
The  statistics  of  illiteracy,  the  deplorable  economic  and 
social  conditions  of  the  rural  population — and  most  of 
the  population  of  North  Carolina  was  rural — furnished 
the  answer. 

Thus  the  North  Carolina  aristocracy  had  failed  in 
education  and  the  failure  of  the  Church  had  been  as  com- 
plete and  deplorable.  The  preachers  had  established 
preparatory  schools  for  boys  and  girls,  but  these  were 
under  the  control  of  sects ;  and  so  education  was  either  a 
class  or  an  ecclesiastical  concern.  "The  forgotten  man 
remained  forgotten.  The  aristocratic  scheme  of  educa- 
tion had  passed  him  by.  To  a  less  extent,  but  still  to  the 
extent  of  hundreds  of  thousands,  the  ecclesiastical  scheme 
had  passed  him  by."  But  even  the  education  which  these 
institutions  gave  was  inferior.  Page  told  his  North  Car- 
olina audience  that  the  University  of  which  they  were  so 
proud  did  not  rank  with  Harvard,  Yale,  Princeton,  and 
other  universities  of  the  North.  The  state  had  not  pro- 
duced great  scholars  nor  established  great  libraries.  In 
the  estimation  of  publishers  North  Carolina  was  unimport- 
ant as  a  book  market.  "By  any  test  that  may  be  made, 
both  these  systems  have  failed  even  with  the  classes  that 
they  appealed  to."  The  net  result  was  that "  One  in  every 
four  was  wholly  forgotten" — that  is,  was  unable  to  read  and 
write.  And  the  worst  of  it  all  was  that  the  victim  of  this 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  77 

neglect  was  not  disturbed  over  his  situation.  "The  for- 
gotten man  was  content  to  be  forgotten.  He  became  not 
only  a  dead  weight,  but  a  definite  opponent  of  social  prog- 
ress. He  faithfully  heard  the  politician  on  the  stump 
praise  him  for  virtues  that  he  did  not  have.  The  poli- 
ticians told  him  that  he  lived  in  the  best  state  in  the  Union ; 
told  him  that  the  other  politicians  had  some  hare-brained 
plan  to  increase  his  taxes,  told  him  as  a  consolation  for  his 
ignorance  how  many  of  his  kinsmen  had  been  killed  in  the 
war,  told  him  to  distrust  any  one  who  wished  to  change 
anything.  What  was  good  enough  for  his  fathers  was 
good  enough  for  him.  Thus  the  'forgotten  man'  became 
a  dupe,  became  thankful  for  being  neglected.  And  the 
preacher  told  him  that  the  ills  and  misfortunes  of  this  life 
were  blessings  in  disguise,  that  God  meant  his  poverty  as 
a  means  of  grace,  and  that  if  he  accepted  the  right  creed 
all  would  be  well  with  him.  These  influences  encouraged 
inertia.  There  could  not  have  been  a  better  means  to 
prevent  the  development  of  the  people." 

Even  more  tragic  than  these  "forgotten  men"  were  the 
"forgotten  women."  "Thin  and  wrinkled  in  youth  from 
ill-prepared  food,  clad  without  warmth  or  grace,  living  in 
untidy  houses,  working  from  daylight  till  bedtime  at  the 
dull  round  of  weary  duties,  the  slaves  of  men  of  equal 
slovenliness,  the  mothers  of  joyless  children — all  unedu- 
cated if  not  illiterate."  "This  sight,"  Page  told  his 
hearers,  "every  one  of  you  has  seen,  not  in  the  countries 
whither  we  send  missionaries,  but  in  the  borders  of  the 
State  of  North  Carolina,  in  this  year  of  grace." 

"Our  civilization,"  he  declared,  "has  been  a  failure." 
Both  the  politicians  and  the  preacher  had  failed  to  lift 
the  masses.  "It  is  a  time  for  a  wiser  statesmanship  and 
a  more  certain  means  of  grace."  He  admitted  that  there 
had  been  recent  progress  in  North  Carolina,  owing  largely 


78         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

to  the  work  of  Mclver  and  Alderman,  but  taxes  for  edu- 
cational purposes  were  still  low.  What  was  the  solution? 
"A  public  school  system  generously  supported  by 
public  sentiment  and  generously  maintained  by  both 
state  and  local  taxation,  is  the  only  effective  means  to 
develop  the  forgotten  man  and  even  more  surely  the 
only  means  to  develop  the  forgotten  woman.  .  .  ." 
"If  any  beggar  for  a  church  school  oppose  a  local  tax 
for  schools  or  a  higher  school  tax,  take  him  to  the  huts 
of  the  forgotten  women  and  children,  and  in  their  hope- 
less presence  remind  him  that  the  church  system  of  edu- 
cation has  not  touched  tens  of  thousands  of  these  lives 
and  ask  him  whether  he  thinks  it  wrong  that  the  common- 
wealth should  educate  them.  If  he  think  it  wrong  ask 
him  and  ask  the  people  plainly,  whether  he  be  a  worthy 
preacher  of  the  gospel  that  declares  one  man  equal  to 
another  in  the  sight  of  God?  .  .  .  The  most  sacred 
thing  in  the  commonwealth  and  to  the  commonwealth 
is  the  child,  whether  it  be  your  child  or  the  child  of  the 
dull-faced  mother  of  the  hovel.  The  child  of  the  dull- 
faced  mother  may,  as  you  know,  be  the  most  capable 
child  in  the  state.  .  .  .  Several  of  the  strongest 
personalities  that  were  ever  born  in  North  Carolina  were 
men  whose  very  fathers  were  unknown.  We  have  all 
known  two  such,  who  held  high  places  in  Church  and 
State.  President  Eliot  said  a  little  while  ago  that  the 
ablest  man  that  he  had  known  in  his  many  years'  con- 
nection with  Harvard  University  was  the  son  of  a  brick 
mason." 

In  place  of  the  ecclesiastical  creed  that  had  guided 
North  Carolina  for  so  many  generations  Page  proposed 
his  creed  of  democracy.  He  advised  that  North  Carolina 
commit  this  to  memory  and  teach  it  to  its  children.  It 
was  as  follows: 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  79 

"I  believe  in  the  free  public  training  of  both  the  hands 
and  the  mind  of  every  child  born  of  woman. 

"I  believe  that  by  the  right  training  of  men  we  add  to 
the  wealth  of  the  world.  All  wealth  is  the  creation  of 
man,  and  he  creates  it  only  in  proportion  to  the  trained 
uses  of  the  community;  and  the  more  men  we  train  the 
more  wealth  everyone  may  create. 

"I  believe  in  the  perpetual  regeneration  of  society,  and 
in  the  immortality  of  democracy  and  in  growth  ever- 
lasting." 

Thus  Page  nailed  his  theses  upon  the  door  of  his  native 
state,  and  mighty  was  the  reverberation.  In  a  few  weeks 
Page's  Greensboro  address  had  made  its  way  all  over  the 
Southern  States,  and  his  melancholy  figure,  "the  for- 
gotten man"  had  become  part  of  the  indelible  imagery 
of  the  Southern  people.  The  portrait  etched  itself 
deeply  into  the  popular  consciousness  for  the  very  good 
reason  that  its  truth  was  pretty  generally  recognized, 
The  higher  type  of  newspaper,  though  it  winced  some- 
what at  Page's  strictures,  manfully  recognized  that  the 
best  way  of  meeting  his  charge  was  by  setting  to  work  and 
improving  conditions.  The  fact  is  that  the  better  con- 
science of  North  Carolina  welcomed  this  eloquent  de- 
scription of  unquestioned  evils ;  but  the  gentlemen  whom 
Page  used  to  stigmatize  as  "professional  Southerners" — 
the  men  who  commercialized  class  and  sectional  prejudice 
to  their  own  political  and  financial  or  ecclesiastical  profit 
— fell  foul  of  this  "renegade,"  this  "Southern  Yankee" 
this  sacrilegious  "intruder"  who  had  dared  to  visit  his 
old  home  and  desecrate  its  traditions  and  its  religion. 
This  clerical  wrath  was  kindled  into  fresh  flame  when 
Page,  in  an  editorial  in  his  magazine,  declared  that  these 
same  preachers,  ignoring  their  real  duties,  were  content 


80         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

"to  herd  their  women  and  children  around  the  stagnant 
pools  of  theology."  For  real  religion  Page  had  the 
deepest  reverence,  and  he  had  great  respect  also  for  the 
robust  evangelical  preachers  whose  efforts  had  con- 
tributed so  much  to  the  opening  up  of  the  frontier.  In 
his  Greensboro  address  Page  had  given  these  men  high 
praise.  But  for  the  assiduous  idolaters  of  stratified  dogma 
he  entertained  a  contempt  which  he  was  seldom  at  pains 
to  conceal.  North  Carolina  had  many  clergymen  of  the 
more  progressive  type;  these  men  chuckled  at  Page's 
vigorous  characterization  of  the  brethren,  but  those 
against  whom  it  had  been  aimed  raged  with  a  fervour 
that  was  almost  unchristian.  This  clerical  excitement, 
however,  did  not  greatly  disturb  the  philosophic  Page. 
The  hubbub  lasted  for  several  years — for  Page's  Greens- 
boro speech  was  only  the  first  of  many  pronouncements 
of  the  same  kind — but  he  never  publicly  referred  to  the 
attacks  upon  him.  Occasionally  in  letters  to  his  friends 
he  would  good-naturedly  discuss  them.  "I  have  had 
several  letters,"  he  wrote  to  Professor  Edwin  Minis,  of 
Trinity  College,  North  Carolina,  "about  an  'excoriation' 
(Great  Heavens!  What  a  word!)  that  somebody  in 
North  Carolina  has  been  giving  me.  I  never  read  these 
things  and  I  don't  know  what  it's  all  about — nor  do  I 
care.  But  perhaps  you'll  be  interested  in  a  letter  that  I 
wrote  an  old  friend  (a  lady)  who  is  concerned  about 
it.  I  enclose  a  copy  of  it.  I  shall  never  notice  any 
'excoriator.'  But  if  you  wish  to  add  to  the  gaiety  of 
nations,  give  this  copy  to  some  newspaper  and  let  it 
loose  in  the  state — if  you  care  to  do  so.  We  must  have 
patience  with  these  puny  and  peevish  brethren.  They've 
been  trained  to  a  false  view  of  life.  Heaven  knows  I 
bear  them  no  ill-will." 

The  letter  to  which  Page  referred  follows: 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  81 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND: 

I  have  your  letter  saying  that  some  of  the  papers  in 
North  Carolina  are  again  "jumping  on"  me.  I  do  not 
know  which  they  are,  and  I  am  glad  that  you  did  not 
tell  me.  I  had  heard  of  it  before.  A  preacher  wrote  me 
the  other  day  that  he  approved  of  every  word  of  an  "ex- 
coriation" that  some  religious  editor  had  given  me.  A 
kindly  Christian  act — wasn't  it,  to  send  a  stranger  word 
that  you  were  glad  that  he  had  been  abused  by  a  religious 
editor?  I  wrote  him  a  gentle  letter,  telling  him  that  I 
hoped  he'd  have  a  long  and  happy  life  preaching  a  gospel 
of  friendliness  and  neighbourliness  and  good-will,  and 
that  I  cared  nothing  about  "excoriations."  Why  should 
he,  then,  forsake  his  calling  and  take  delight  in  dis- 
seminating personal  abuse? 

And  why  do  you  not  write  me  about  things  that  I 
really  care  for  in  the  good  old  country — the  budding  trees, 
the  pleasant  weather,  news  of  old  friends,  gossip  of  good 
people — cheerful  things?  I  pray  you,  don't  be  concerned 
about  what  any  poor  whining  soul  may  write  about  me. 
I  don't  care  for  myself:  I  care  only  for  him;  for  the  writer 
of  personal  abuse  always  suffers  from  it — never  the  man 
abused. 

I  haven't  read  what  my  kindly  clerical  correspondent 
calls  an  "excoriation"  for  ten  years,  and  I  never  shah1 
read  one  if  I  know  what  it  is  beforehand.  Why  should 
I  or  anybody  read  such  stuff?  I  can't  find  time  to  do 
half  the  positive  things  that  I  should  like  to  do  for  the 
broadening  of  my  own  character  and  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  others.  Why  should  I  waste  a  single  minute 
in  such  a  negative  and  cheerless  way  as  reading  anybody's 
personal  abuse  of  anybody  else — least  of  all  myself? 

These  silly  outbursts  never  reach  me  and  they  never 
can ;  and  they,  therefore,  utterly  fail,  and  always  will  fail, 


82         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

of  their  aim ;  yet,  my  dear  friend,  there  is  nevertheless  a 
serious  side  to  such  folly.  For  it  shows  the  need  of  edu- 
cation, education,  education.  The  religious  editor  and 
the  preacher  who  took  joy  in  his  abuse  of  me  have  such 
a  starved  view  of  life  that  they  cannot  themselves,  per- 
haps, ever  be  educated  into  kindliness  and  dignity  of 
thought.  But  their  children  may  be — must  be.  Think 
of  beautiful  children  growing  up  in  a  home  where  "ex- 
coriating" people  who  differ  with  you  is  regarded  as  a 
manly  Christian  exercise!  It  is  pitiful  beyond  words. 
There  is  no  way  to  lift  up  life  that  is  on  so  low  a  level  ex- 
cept by  the  free  education  of  all  the  people.  Let  us  work 
for  that  and,  when  the  growlers  are  done  growling  and 
forgotten,  better  men  will  remember  us  with  gratitude. 
I  felt  greatly  complimented  and  pleased  to  receive  an 
invitation  the  other  day  to  attend  the  North  Carolina 
Teachers'  Assembly  in  June.  I  have  many  things  to  do 
in  June,  but  I  am  going — going  with  great  pleasure.  I 
hope  to  see  you  there.  I  know  of  no  other  company  of 
people  that  I  should  be  so  glad  to  meet.  They  are  doing 
noble  work — the  most  devoted  and  useful  work  in  this 
whole  wide  world.  They  are  the  true  leaders  of  the 
people.  I  often  wish  that  I  were  one  of  them.  They 
inspire  me  as  nobody  else  does.  They  are  the  army  of 
our  salvation. 

Write  me  what  they  are  doing.    Write  me  about  the 

wonderful  educational  progress.    And  write  me  about  the 

peach  trees  and  the  budding  imminence  of  spring;  and 

about  the  children  who  now  live  all  day  outdoors  and 

grow  brown  and  plump.    And  never  mind  that  queer 

sect,  "The  Excoriators."    They  and  their  stage  thunder 

will  be  forgotten  to-morrow.  1  Meantime  let  us  live  and 

|  work  for  things  nobler  than  any  controversies,  for  things 

!  that  are  larger  than  the  poor  mission  of  any  sect;  and  let 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  83 

us  have  charity  and  a  patient  pity  for  those  that  think 
they  serve  God  by  abusing  their  fellow-men.  I  wish  I 
saw  some  way  to  help  them  to  a  broader  and  a  higher  life. 

Faithfully  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

in 

That  Page  should  have  little  interest  in  "excoriators" 
at  the  time  this  letter  was  written — in  April,  1902 — was 
not  surprising,  for  his  educational  campaign  and  that  of 
his  friends  was  now  bearing  fruit.  "Write  me  about 
the  wonderful  educational  progress,"  he  says  to  this 
correspondent;  and,  indeed,  the  change  that  was  coming 
over  North  Carolina  and  the  South  generally  seemed  to 
be  tinged  with  the  miraculous.  The  "Forgotten  Man" 
and  the  "Forgotten  Woman"  were  rapidly  coming  into 
their  own.  Two  years  after  the  delivery  of  Page's 
Greensboro  address,  a  small  group  of  educational  en- 
thusiasts met  at  Capon  Springs,  West  Virginia,  to  dis- 
cuss the  general  situation  in  the  South.  The  leader  of 
this  little  gathering  was  Robert  C.  Ogden,  a  great  New 
York  merchant  who  for  many  years  had  been  President 
of  the  Board  of  Hampton  Institute.  Out  of  this  meet- 
ing grew  the  Southern  Educational  Conference,  which 
was  little  more  than  an  annual  meeting  for  advertis- 
ing broadcast  the  educational  needs  of  the  South.  Each 
year  Mr.  Ogden  chartered  a  railroad  train;  a  hundred 
or  so  of  the  leading  editors,  lawyers,  bankers,  and  the 
like  became  his  guests;  the  train  moved  through  the 
Southern  States,  pausing  now  and  then  to  investigate 
some  particular  institution  or  locality;  and  at  some 
Southern  city,  such  as  Birmingham  or  Atlanta  or  Winston- 
Salem,  a  stop  of  several  days  would  be  made,  a  public 
building  engaged,  and  long  meetings  held.  In  all  these 


84         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

proceedings  Page  was  an  active  figure,  as  he  became  in 
the  Southern  Education  Board,  which  directly  resulted 
from  Mr.  Ogden's  public  spirited  excursions.  Like  the 
Conference,  the  Southern  Education  Board  was  a  purely 
missionary  organization,  and  its  most  active  worker  was 
Page  himself.  He  was  constantly  speaking  and  writing 
on  his  favourite  subject;  he  printed  article  after  article, 
not  only  in  his  own  magazine,  but  in  the  Atlantic,  in 
the  Outlook,  and  in  a  multitude  of  newspapers,  such  as 
the  Boston  Transcript,  the  New  York  Times,  and  the 
Kansas  City  Star.  And  always  through  his  writings, 
and,  indeed,  through  his  life,  there  ran,  like  the  motif  of 
an  opera,  that  same  perpetual  plea  for  "the  forgotten 
man" — the  need  of  uplifting  the  backward  masses 
through  training,  both  of  the  mind  and  of  the  hand. 

The  day  came  when  this  loyal  group  had  other  things  to 
work  with  than  their  voices  and  their  pens ;  their  efforts 
had  attracted  the  attention  of  Mr.  John  D.  Rockefeller,  who 
brought  assistance  of  an  extremely  substantial  character. 
In  1902  Mr.  Rockefeller  organized  the  General  Education 
Board.  Of  the  ten  members  six  were  taken  from  the 
Southern  Education  Board;  other  members  represented 
general  educational  interests  and  especially  the  Baptist 
interests  to  which  Mr.  Rockefeller  had  been  contributing 
for  years.  In  a  large  sense,  therefore,  especially  in  its 
membership,  the  General  Education  Board  was  a  develop- 
ment of  the  Ogden  organization ;  but  it  was  much  broader 
in  its  sweep,  taking  under  its  view  the  entire  nation  and 
all  forms  of  educational  effort.  It  immediately  began 
to  interest  itself  in  the  needs  of  the  South.  In  1902 
Mr.  Rockefeller  gave  this  new  corporation  $1,000,000; 
in  1905  he  gave  it  $10,000,000;  in  1907  he  astonished  the 
Nation  by  giving  $32,000,000,  and,  in  1909,  another 

),000,000;  the  whole  making  a  total  of  $53,000,000, 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  85 

the  largest  sum  ever  given  by  a  single  man,  up  to  that 
time,  for  social  or  philanthropic  purposes.  The  General 
Education  Board  now  became  the  chief  outside  interest 
of  Page's  life.  He  was  made  a  member  of  the  Executive 
Committee,  faithfully  attended  all  its  sessions,  and  par- 
ticipated intimately  in  every  important  plan.  All 
such  bodies  have  their  decorative  members  and  their 
working  members;  Page  belonged  emphatically  in  the 
latter  class.  Not  only  was  he  fertile  in  suggestions,  but 
his  ready  mind  could  give  almost  any  proposal  its  proper 
emphasis  and  clearly  set  forth  its  essential  details.  Be- 
tween Page  and  Dr.  Buttrick,  Secretary  and  now  President 
of  the  Board,  a  close  personal  intimacy  grew  up.  Dr. 
Buttrick  moved  to  Teaneck  Road,  Englewood,  where  Page 
had  his  home,  and  many  a  long  evening  did  the  two  men 
spend  together,  many  a  long  walk  did  they  take  in  the 
surrounding  country,  always  discussing  education,  espe- 
cially Southern  education.  A  letter  to  the  present  writer 
from  Dr.  Abraham  Flexner,  the  present  Secretary  of  the 
Board,  perhaps  sums  up  the  matter.  "Page  was  one  of 
the  real  educational  statesmen  of  this  country,"  says  Dr. 
Flexner,  "probably  the  greatest  that  we  have  had  since 
the  Civil  War." 

And  this  Rockefeller  support  came  at  a  time  when 
that  movement  known  as  the  "educational  awakening" 
had  started  in  the  South.  In  1900  North  Carolina  elected 
its  greatest  governor  since  the  Civil  War — Charles  B. 
Aycock.  A  much  repeated  anecdote  attributes  Lincoln's 
detestation  of  slavery  to  a  slave  auction  that  he  wit- 
nessed as  a  small  boy;  Aycock's  first  zeal  as  an  educa- 
tional reformer  had  an  origin  that  was  even  more  pathetic, 
for  he  always  carried  in  his  mind  his  recollection  of  his  own 
mother  signing  an  important  legal  document  with  a  cross. 
As  a  young  man  fresh  from  the  university  Aycock  also 


86         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

came  under  the  influence  of  Page.  An  old  letter,  pre- 
served among  Page's  papers,  dated  February  26,  1886, 
discloses  that  he  was  a  sympathizing  reader  of  the 
"mummy"  controversy;  when  the  brickbats  began  flying 
in  Page's  direction  Aycock  wrote,  telling  Page  that 
"fully  three  fourths  of  the  people  are  with  you  and  wish 
you  Godspeed  in  your  effort  to  awaken  better  work, 
greater  activity,  and  freer  opinion  in  the  state."  And 
now  under  Ay  cock's  governorship  North  Carolina  began 
to  tackle  the  educational  problem  with  a  purpose.  School 
houses  started  up  all  over  the  state  at  the  rate  of  one  a 
day — many  of  them  beautiful,  commodious,  modern  struc- 
tures, in  every  way  the  equals  of  any  in  the  North  or 
West;  high  schools,  normal  schools,  trade  schools  made 
their  appearance  wherever  the  need  was  greatest;  and 
in  other  parts  of  the  South  the  response  was  similarly 
energetic.  The  reform  is  not  yet  complete,  but  the 
description  that  Page  gave  of  Southern  education  in 
1897,  accurate  in  all  its  details  as  it  was  then,  has  now 
become  ancient  history. 

IV 

And  in  occupations  of  this  kind  Page  passed  his  years 
of  maturity.  His  was  not  a  spectacular  life;  his  family 
for  the  most  part  still  remained  his  most  immediate 
interest;  the  daily  round  of  an  editor  has  its  imaginative 
quality,  but  in  the  main  it  was  for  Page  a  quiet,  even  a 
cloistered  existence;  the  work  that  an  editor  does,  the 
achievements  that  he  can  put  to  his  credit,  are  usually 
anonymous;  and  the  American  public  little  understood 
the  extent  to  which  Page  was  influencing  many  of  the 
most  vital  forces  of  his  time.  The  business  association 
that  he  had  formed  with  Mr.  Doubleday  turned  out 
most  happily.  Their  publishing  house,  in  a  short  time, 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  87 

attained  a  position  of  great  influence  and  prosperity. 
The  two  men,  on  both  the  personal  and  the  business 
side,  were  congenial  and  complementary;  and  the 
love  that  both  felt  for  country  life  led  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  publishing  and  printing  plant  of  unusual 
beauty.  In  Garden  City,  Long  Island,  a  great  brick  struc- 
ture was  built,  somewhat  suggestive  in  its  architecture  of 
Hampton  Court,  surrounded  by  pools  and  fountains,  Italian 
gardens,  green  walks  and  pergolas,  gardens  blooming  in  ap- 
propriate seasons  with  roses,  peonies,  rhododendrons,  chry- 
santhemums, and  the  like,  and  parks  of  evergreen,  fir, 
cedar,  and  more  exotic  trees  and  shrubs.  Certainly  fate 
could  have  designed  no  more  fitting  setting  for  Page's 
favourite  activities  than  this.  In  assembling  authors, 
in  instigating  the  writing  of  books,  in  watching  the 
achievements  and  the  tendencies  of  American  life,  in  the 
routine  of  editing  his  magazine — all  this  in  association  with 
partners  whose  daily  companionship  was  a  delight  and  a 
stimulation — Page  spent  his  last  years  in  America. 

Page's  independence  as  an  editor,  sufficiently  indicated 
in  the  days  of  his  vivacious  youth,  became  even  more  em- 
phatic in  his  maturer  years.  In  his  eyes,  merely  inking  over 
so  many  pages  of  good  white  paper  was  not  journalism ; 
conviction,  zeal,  honesty — these  were  the  important 
points.  Almost  on  the  very  day  that  his  appointment  as 
Ambassador  to  Great  Britain  was  announced  his  maga- 
zine published  an  editorial  from  his  pen,  which  contained 
not  especially  complimentary  references  to  his  new  chief, 
Mr.  Bryan,  the  Secretary  of  State;  naturally  the  news- 
papers found  much  amusement  in  these  few  sentences; 
but  the  thing  was  typical  of  Page's  whole  career  as  an 
editor.  He  held  to  the  creed  that  an  editor  should 
divorce  himself  entirely  from  prejudices,  animosities, 
and  predilections;  this  seems  an  obvious,  even  a  trite 


88         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

thing  to  say,  yet  there  are  so  few  men  who  can  leave 
personal  considerations  aside  in  writing  of  men  and 
events  that  it  is  worth  while  pointing  out  that  Page  was 
such  a  man.  When  his  firm  was  planning  to  establish 
its  magazine,  his  partner,  Mr.  Doubleday,  was  ap- 
proached by  a  New  York  politician  of  large  influence  but 
shady  reputation  who  wished  to  be  assured  that  it  would 
reflect  correct  political  principles.  "You  should  see  Mr. 
Page  about  that,"  was  the  response.  "No,  this  is  a  busi- 
ness matter,"  the  insinuating  gentleman  went  on,  and 
then  he  proceeded  to  show  that  about  twenty-five  thou- 
sand subscribers  could  be  obtained  if  the  publication 
preached  orthodox  standpat  doctrine.  "I  don't  think 
you  had  better  see  Mr.  Page,"  said  Mr.  Doubleday,  dis- 
missing his  caller. 

Many  incidents  which  illustrate  this  independence 
could  be  given;  one  will  suffice.  In  1907  and  1908, 
Page's  magazine  published  the  "  Random  Reminiscences  of 
John  D.  Rockefeller."  While  the  articles  were  appear- 
ing, the  Hearst  newspapers  obtained  a  large  number  of 
letters  that,  some  years  before,  had  passed  between 
Mr.  John  D.  Archbold,  President  of  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  and  one  of  Mr.  Rockefeller's  business  associates 
from  the  earliest  days,  and  Senator  Joseph  B.  Foraker,  of 
Ohio.  These  letters  uncovered  one  of  the  gravest  scan- 
dals that  had  ever  involved  an  American  public  man; 
they  instantaneously  destroyed  Senator  Foraker's  politi- 
cal career  and  hastened  his  death.  They  showed  that 
this  brilliant  man  had  been  obtaining  large  sums  of 
money  from  the  Standard  Oil  Company  while  he  was 
filling  the  post  of  United  States  Senator  and  that  at  the 
same  time  he  was  receiving  suggestions  from  Mr.  Arch- 
bold  about  pending  legislation.  Mr.  Rockefeller  was  not 
personally  involved,  for  he  had  retired  from  active  busi- 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  89 

ness  many  years  before  these  things  had  been  done;  but 
the  Standard  Oil  Company,  with  which  his  name  was 
intimately  associated,  was  involved  and  in  a  way  that 
seemed  to  substantiate  the  worst  charges  that  had  been 
made  against  it.  At  this  time  Page,  as  a  member  of  the 
General  Education  Board,  was  doing  his  part  in  helping 
to  disperse  the  Rockefeller  millions  for  public  purposes; 
his  magazine  was  publishing  Mr.  Rockefeller's  reminis- 
cences; there  are  editors  who  would  have  felt  a  certain 
embarrassment  in  commenting  on  the  Archbold  trans- 
action. Page,  however,  did  not  hesitate.  Mr.  Arch- 
bold,  hearing  that  he  intended  to  treat  the  subject  fully, 
asked  him  to  come  and  see  him.  Page  replied  that  he 
would  be  glad  to  have  Mr.  Archbold  call  upon  him. 
The  two  men  were  brought  together  by  friendly  inter- 
mediaries in  a  neutral  place;  but  the  great  oil  magnate's 
explanation  of  his  iniquities  did  not  satisfy  Page.  The 
November,  1908,  issue  of  the  magazine  contained,  in  one 
section,  an  interesting  chapter  by  Mr.  Rockefeller,  de- 
scribing the  early  days  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  and, 
in  another,  ten  columns  by  Page,  discussing  the  Archbold 
disclosures  in  language  that  was  discriminating  and  well 
tempered,  but  not  at  all  complimentary  to  Mr.  Archbold 
or  to  the  Standard  Oil  Company. 

Occasionally  Page  was  summoned  for  services  of  a 
public  character.  Thus  President  Roosevelt,  whose  friend- 
ship he  had  enjoyed  for  many  years,  asked  him  to 
serve  upon  his  Country  Life  Commission — a  group  of 
men  called  by  the  President  to  study  ways  of  im- 
proving the  surroundings  and  extending  the  oppor- 
tunities of  American  farmers.  Page's  interest  in  Negro 
education  led  to  his  appointment  to  the  Jeanes  Board. 
He  early  became  an  admirer  of  Booker  Washington,  and 
especially  approved  his  plan  for  uplifting  the  Negro 


90         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

by  industrial  training.  One  of  the  great  services  that 
Page  rendered  literature  was  his  persuasion  of  Wash- 
ington to  write  that  really  great  autobiography,  "Up 
from  Slavery,"  and  another  biography  in  a  different 
field,  for  which  he  was  responsible,  was  Miss  Helen 
Keller's  "Story  of  My  Life."  And  only  once,  amid  these 
fine  but  not  showy  activities,  did  Page's  life  assume  any- 
thing in  the  nature  of  the  sensational.  This  was  in 
1909,  when  he  published  his  one  effort  at  novel  writing, 
"The  Southerner."  To  write  novels  had  been  an  early 
ambition  with  Page;  indeed  his  papers  disclose  that  he 
had  meditated  several  plans  of  this  kind;  but  he  never 
seriously  settled  himself  to  the  task  until  the  year  1906. 
In  July  of  that  year  the  Atlantic  Monthly  began  pub- 
lishing a  serial  entitled  "The  Autobiography  of  a  South- 
erner Since  the  Civil  War,"  by  Nicholas  Worth.  The 
literary  matter  that  appeared  under  this  title  most 
readers  accepted  as  veracious  though  anonymous  auto- 
biography. It  related  the  life  adventures  of  a  young  man, 
born  in  the  South,  of  parents  who  had  had  little  sympathy 
with  the  Confederate  cause,  attempting  to  carve  out  his 
career  in  the  section  of  his  birth  and  meeting  opposition 
and  defeat  from  the  prejudices  with  which  he  constantly 
found  himself  in  conflict.  The  story  found  its  main 
theme  and  background  in  the  fact  that  the  Southern 
States  were  so  exclusively  living  in  the  memories  of  the 
Civil  War  that  it  was  impossible  for  modern  ideas  to 
obtain  a  foothold.  "  I  have  sometimes  thought,"  said  the 
author,  and  this  passage  may  be  taken  as  embodying  the 
leading  point  of  the  narrative, ("that  many  of  the  men 
who  survived  that  unnatural  war  unwittingly  did  us  a 
greater  hurt  than  the  war  itself.  It  gave  everyone  of 
them  the  intensest  experience  of  his  life  and  ever  after- 
ward he  referred  every  other  experience  to  this.  )  Thus 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  91 

it  stopped  the  thought  of  most  of  them  as  an  earthquake 
stops  a  clock.  The  fierce  blow  of  battle  paralyzed  the 
mind.  Their  speech  was  a  vocabulary  of  war,  their 
loyalties  were  loyalties,  not  to  living  ideas  or  duties,  but 
to  old  commanders  and  to  distorted  traditions.  They 
were  dead  men,  most  of  them,  moving  among  the  living 
as  ghosts;  and  yet,  as  ghosts  in  a  play,  they  held  the 
stage. ' '  In  another  passage  the  writer  names  the  * '  ghosts ' ' 
which  are  chiefly  responsible  for  preventing  Southern 
progress.  They  are  three:  "The  Ghost  of  the  Con- 
federate dead,  the  Ghost  of  religious  orthodoxy,  the  Ghost 
of  Negro  domination."  Everywhere  the  hero  finds  his 
progress  blocked  by  these  obstructive  wraiths  of  the  past. 
He  seeks  a  livelihood  in  educational  work — becomes  a  local 
superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  and  loses  his  place 
because  his  religious  views  are  unorthodox,  because  he 
refuses  to  accept  the  popular  estimate  of  Confederate 
statesmen,  and  because  he  hopes  to  educate  the  black 
child  as  well  as  the  white  one.  He  enters  politics  and 
runs  for  public  office  on  the  platform  of  the  new  day,  is 
elected,  and  then  finds  himself  counted  out  by  political 
ringsters.  Still  he  does  not  lose  faith,  and  finally  settles 
down  in  the  management  of  a  cotton  mill,  convinced  that 
the  real  path  of  salvation  lies  in  economic  effort.  This 
mere  skeleton  of  a  story  furnishes  an  excuse  for  rehears- 
ing again  the  ideas  that  Page  had  already  made  familiar 
in  his  writings  and  in  his  public  addresses.  This  time 
the  lesson  is  enlivened  by  the  portrayal  of  certain  typ- 
ical characters  of  the  post-bellum  South.  They  are 
all  there — the  several  types  of  Negro,  ranging  all  the 
way  from  the  faithful  and  philosophic  plantation  re- 
tainer to  the  lazy  "Publican"  office-seeker;  the  po- 
litical colonel,  to  whom  the  Confederate  veterans  and 
the  "fair  daughters  of  the  South  (God  bless  'em)"  are 


92         THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

the  mainstays  of  "civerlerzation"  and  indispensable  in- 
strumentalities in  the  game  of  partisan  politics ;  the  evan- 
gelical clergymen  who  cared  more  for  old-fashioned  creeds 
than  for  the  education  of  the  masses ;  the  disreputable  edi- 
tor who  specialized  in  Negro  crime  and  constantly  preached 
the  doctrine  of  the  "white  man's  country";  the  Southern 
woman  who,  innocently  and  sincerely  and  even  charm- 
ingly, upheld  the  ancient  tradition  and  the  ancient  feud. 
On  the  other  hand,  Page's  book  portrays  the  buoyant 
enthusiast  of  the  new  day,  the  reformer  who  was  seeking 
to  establish  a  public  school  system  and  to  strengthen 
the  position  of  woman;  and,  above  all,  the  quiet,  hard- 
working industrialist  who  cared  nothing  for  stump  speak- 
ing but  much  for  cotton  mills,  improved  methods  of 
farming,  the  introduction  of  diversified  crops,  the  tidying 
up  of  cities  and  the  country. 

These  chapters,  extensively  rewritten,  were  published 
as  a  book  in  1909.  Probably  Page  was  under  no  illusion 
that  he  had  created  a  real  romance  when  he  described 
his  completed  work  as  a  "novel."  The  Atlantic  auto- 
biography had  attracted  wide  attention,  and  the  identi- 
fication of  the  author  had  been  immediate  and  accurate. 
Page's  friends  began  calling  his  house  on  the  telephone  and 
asking  for  "Nicholas"  and  certain  genial  spirits  addressed 
him  in  letters  as  "Marse  Little  Nick" — the  name  under 
which  the  hero  was  known  to  the  old  Negro  family  ser- 
vant, Uncle  Ephraim — perhaps  the  best  drawn  character 
in  the  book.  Page's  real  purpose  in  calling  the  book  a 
"novel"  therefore,  was  to  inform  the  public  that  the 
story,  so  far  as  its  incidents  and  most  of  its  characters 
were  concerned,  was  pure  fiction.  Certain  episodes,  such 
as  those  describing  the  hero's  early  days,  were,  in  the 
main,  veracious  transcripts  from  Page's  own  life,  but  the 
rest  of  the  book  bears  practically  no  relation  to  his  career. 


.. 


THE   FORGOTTEN   MAN"  93 


The  fact  that  he  spent  his  mature  years  in  the  North, 
editing  magazines  and  publishing,  whereas  Nicholas 
Worth  spends  his  in  the  South,  engaged  in  educational 
work  and  in  politics  and  industry,  settles  this  point. 
The  characters,  too,  are  rather  types  than  specific  in- 
dividuals, though  one  or  two  of  them,  particularly  Pro- 
fessor Billy  Bain,  who  is  clearly  Charles  D.  Mclver,  may 
be  accepted  as  fairly  accurate  portraits.  But  as  a  work 
of  fiction  "The  Southerner"  can  hardly  be  considered 
a  success;  the  love  story  is  too  slight,  the  women  not  well 
done,  most  of  the  characters  rather  personified  qualities 
than  flesh  and  blood  people.  Its  strength  consists  in 
the  picture  that  it  gives  of  the  so-called  "Southern 
problem,"  and  especially  of  the  devastating  influence  of 
slavery.  From  this  standpoint  the  book  is  an  auto- 
biography, for  the  ideas  and  convictions  it  presents  had 
formed  the  mental  life  of  Page  from  his  earliest  days. 
And  these  were  the  things  that  hurt.  Yet  the  stories  of 
the  anger  caused  by  "The  Southerner"  have  been  much 
exaggerated.  It  is  said  that  a  certain  distinguished  South- 
ern senator  declared  that,  had  he  known  that  Page  was  the 
author  of  "The  Southerner,"  he  would  have  blocked  his 
nomination  as  Ambassador  to  Great  Britain ;  certain  South- 
ern newspapers  also  severely  denounced  the  volume;  even 
some  of  Page's  friends  thought  that  it  was  a  little  unkind 
in  spots;  yet  as  a  whole  the  Southern  people  accepted  it 
as  a  fair,  and  certainly  as  an  honest,  treatment  of  a 
very  difficult  subject.  Possibly  Page  was  a  little  hard 
upon  the  Confederate  veteran,  and  did  not  sufficiently 
portray  the  really  pathetic  aspects  of  his  character;  any 
shortcomings  of  this  sort  are  due,  not  to  any  failing 
in  sympathy,  but  to  the  fact  that  Page's  zeal  was 
absorbingly  concentrated  upon  certain  glaring  abuses. 
And  as  to  the  accuracy  of  his  vision  in  these  respects 


94         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

there  could  be  no  question.  The  volume  was  a  wel- 
come antidote  to  the  sentimental  Southern  novels  that 
had  contented  themselves  with  glorifying  a  vanished 
society  which,  when  the  veil  is  stripped,  was  not  heroic 
in  all  its  phases,  for  it  was  based  upon  an  institution  so 
squalid  as  human  slavery,  and  to  those  even  more  perni- 
cious books  which,  by  luridly  portraying  the  unquestioned 
vices  of  reconstruction  and  the  frightful  consequences 
which  resulted  from  giving  the  Negro  the  ballot,  simply 
aroused  useless  passions  and  made  the  way  out  of  the 
existing  wilderness  still  more  difficult.  So  the  best  public 
opinion,  North  and  South,  regarded  "The  Southerner," 
and  decided  that  Page  had  performed  a  service  to  the 
section  of  his  birth  in  writing  it.  Indeed  the  fair-minded 
and  intelligent  spirit  with  which  the  best  elements  in 
the  South  received  "The  Southerner"  in  itself  demonstra- 
ted that  this  great  region  had  entered  upon  a  new  day. 


Nor  was  Page's  work  for  the  South  yet  ended.  In  the 
important  five  years  from  1905  to  1910  he  performed  two 
services  of  an  extremely  practical  kind.  In  1906  the 
problem  of  Southern  education  assumed  a  new  phase. 
Dr.  Wallace  Buttrick,  the  Secretary  of  the  General 
Education  Board,  had  now  decided  that  the  fundamental 
difficulty  was  economic.  By  that  time  the  Southern 
people  had  revised  their  original  conception  that  edu- 
cation was  a  private  and  not  a  public  concern ;  there  was 
now  a  general  acceptance  of  the  doctrine  that  the  mental 
and  physical  training  of  every  child,  white  and  black, 
was  the  responsibility  of  the  state;  Ay  cock's  campaign 
had  worked  such  a  popular  revolution  on  this  subject 
that  no  politician  who  aspired  to  public  office  would  dare 
to  take  a  contrary  view.  Yet  the  economic  difficulty 


4 


THE   FORGOTTEN   MAN"  95 


still  remained.  The  South  was  poor;  whatever  might  be 
the  general  desire,  the  taxable  resources  were  not  suf- 
ficient to  support  such  a  comprehensive  system  of 
popular  instruction  as  existed  in  the  North  and  West. 
Any  permanent  improvement  must  therefore  be  based 
upon  the  strengthening  of  the  South's  economic  position. 
Essentially  the  task  was  to  build  up  Southern  agricul- 
ture, which  for  generations  had  been  wasteful,  unintel- 
ligent and  consequently  unproductive.  Such  a  far-reach- 
ing programme  might  well  appall  the  most  energetic 
reformer,  but  Dr.  Buttrick  set  to  work.  He  saw  little 
light  until  his  attention  was  drawn  to  a  quaint  and 
philosophic  gentleman — a  kind  of  bucolic  Ben  Franklin 
— who  was  then  obscurely  working  in  the  cotton  lands  of 
Louisiana,  making  warfare  on  the  boll  weevil  in  a  way 
of  his  own.  At  that  time  Dr.  Seaman  A.  Knapp  had 
made  no  national  reputation;  yet  he  had  evolved  a  plan 
for  redeeming  country  life  and  making  American  farms 
more  fruitful  that  has  since  worked  marvellous  results. 
There  was  nothing  especially  sensational  about  its  details. 
Dr.  Knapp  had  made  the  discovery  in  relation  to  farms 
that  the  utilitarians  had  long  since  made  with  reference 
to  other  human  activities :  that  the  only  way  to  improve 
agriculture  was  not  to  talk  about  it,  but  to  go  and  do  it. 
During  the  preceding  fifty  years  agricultural  colleges  had 
sprung  up  all  over  the  United  States — Dr.  Knapp  had 
been  president  of  one  himself;  practically  every  Southern 
state  had  one  or  more;  agricultural  lecturers  covered 
thousands  of  miles  annually  telling  their  yawning  audi- 
ences how  to  farm;  these  efforts  had  scattered  broadcast 
much  valuable  information  about  the  subject,  but  the  dif- 
ficulty lay  in  inducing  the  farmers  to  apply  it.  Dr. 
Knapp  had  a  new  method.  He  selected  a  particular 
farmer  and  persuaded  him  to  work  his  fields  for  a  period 


96         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS  OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

according  to  methods  which  he  prescribed.  He  told  his 
pupil  how  to  plough,  what  seed  to  plant,  how  to  space  his 
rows,  what  fertilizers  to  use,  and  the  like.  If  a  selected 
acreage  yielded  a  profitable  crop  which  the  farmer  could 
sell  at  an  increased  price  Dr.  Knapp  had  sufficient  faith 
in  human  nature  to  believe  that  that  particular  farmer 
would  continue  to  operate  his  farm  on  the  new  method 
and  that  his  neighbours,  having  this  practical  example  of 
growing  prosperity,  would  imitate  him. 

Such  was  the  famous  "Demonstration  Work"  of  Dr. 
Seaman  A.  Knapp;  this  activity  is  now  a  regular  branch 
of  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  employing  thousands 
of  agents  and  spending  not  far  from  $18,000,000  a  year. 
Its  application  to  the  South  has  made  practically  a  new 
and  rich  country,  and  it  has  long  since  been  extended  to 
other  regions.  When  Dr.  Buttrick  first  met  Knapp,  how- 
ever, there  were  few  indications  of  this  splendid  future. 
He  brought  Dr.  Knapp  North  and  exhibited  him  to 
Page.  This  was  precisely  the  kind  of  man  who  appealed 
to  Page's  sympathies.  His  mind  was  always  keenly  on 
the  scent  for  the  new  man — the  original  thinker  who  had 
some  practical  plan  for  uplifting  humankind  and  making 
life  more  worth  while.  And  Dr.  Knapp's  mission  was 
one  that  had  filled  most  of  his  thoughts  for  many  years ; 
its  real  purpose  was  the  enrichment  of  country  life. 
Page  therefore  took  to  Dr.  Knapp  with  a  mighty  zest. 
He  supported  him  on  all  occasions;  he  pled  his  cause  with 
great  eloquence  before  the  General  Education  Board, 
whose  purse  strings  were  liberally  unloosed  in  behalf  of 
the  Knapp  work;  in  his  writings,  in  speeches,  in  letters, 
in  all  forms  of  public  advocacy,  he  insisted  that  Dr. 
Knapp  had  found  the  solution  of  the  agricultural  problem. 
The  fact  is  that  Page  regarded  Knapp  as  one  of  the  great- 
est men  of  the  time.  His  feeling  came  out  with  character- 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  97 

istic  intensity  on  the  occasion  of  the  homely  reformer's 
funeral.  "The  exercises,"  Page  once  told  a  friend,  "were 
held  in  a  rather  dismal  little  church  on  the  outskirts  of 
Washington.  The  day  was  bleak  and  chill,  the  attend- 
ants were  few — chiefly  officials  of  the  Department  of 
Agriculture.  The  clergyman  read  the  service  in  the  most 
perfunctory  way.  Then  James  Wilson,  the  Secretary  of 
Agriculture,  spoke  formally  of  Dr.  Knapp  as  a  faithful 
servant  of  the  Department  who  always  did  well  what  he 
was  told  to  do,  commending  his  life  in  an  altogether  com- 
monplace fashion.  By  that  time  my  heart  was  pretty  hot. 
No  one  seemed  to  divine  that  in  the  coffin  before  them 
was  the  body  of  a  really  great  man,  one  who  had  hit  up- 
on a  fruitful  idea  in  American  agriculture — an  idea  that 
was  destined  to  cover  the  nation  and  enrich  rural  life 
immeasurably."  Page  was  so  moved  by  this  lack  of  ap- 
preciation, so  full  of  sorrow  at  the  loss  of  one  of  his 
dearest  friends,  that,  when  he  rose  to  speak,  his  apprais- 
ment  took  on  a  certain  indignation.  Their  dead  associate, 
Page  declared,  would  outrank  the  generals  and  the  poli- 
ticians who  received  the  world's  plaudits,  for  he  had  de- 
voted his  life  to  a  really  great  purpose ;  his  inspiration  had 
(  been  the  love  of  the  common  people,  his  faith,  his  sym- 
/  pathy  had  all  been  expended  in  an  effort  to  brighten  the 
life  of  the  too  frequently  neglected  masses.  Page's  ad- 
dress on  this  occasion  was  entirely  extemporaneous;  no 
record  of  it  was  ever  made,  but  those  who  heard  it  still 
carry  the  memory  of  an  eloquent  and  fiery  outburst  that 
placed  Knapp 's  work  in  its  proper  relation  to  American 
history  and  gave  an  unforgettable  picture  of  a  patient, 
idealistic,  achieving  man  whose  name  will  loom  large  in 
the  future. 

During  this  same  period  Page,  always  on  the  out- 
look for  the  exceptional  man,  made  another  discovery 


98         THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

which  has  had  world- wide  consequences.  As  a  member 
of  President  Roosevelt's  Country  Life  Commission  Page 
became  one  of  the  committee  assigned  to  investigate  con- 
ditions in  the  Southern  States.  The  sanitarian  of  this 
commission  was  Dr.  Charles  W.  Stiles,  a  man  who  held 
high  rank  as  a  zoologist,  and  who,  as  such,  had  for  many 
years  done  important  work  with  the  Department  of 
Agriculture.  Page  had  hardly  formed  Dr.  Stiles's  ac- 
quaintance before  he  discovered  that,  at  that  time,  he 
was  a  man  of  one  idea.  And  this  one  idea  had  for  years 
brought  upon  his  head  much  good-natured  ridicule. 
For  Dr.  Stiles  had  his  own  explanation  for  much  of  the 
mental  and  physical  sluggishness  that  prevailed  in  the 
rural  sections  of  the  Southern  States.  Yet  he  could  not 
mention  this  without  exciting  uproarious  laughter — 
even  in  the  presence  of  scientific  men.  Several  years 
previously  Dr.  Stiles  had  discovered  that  a  hitherto  unclas- 
sified species  of  a  parasite  popularly  known  as  the  hook- 
worm prevailed  to  an  astonishing  extent  in  all  the  South- 
ern States.  The  pathological  effects  of  this  creature  had 
long  been  known;  it  localized  in  the  intestines,  there  se- 
creted a  poison  that  destroyed  the  red  blood  corpuscles, 
and  reduced  its  victims  to  a  deplorable  state  of  anaemia, 
making  them  constantly  ill,  listless,  mentally  dull — in 
every  sense  of  the  word  useless  units  of  society.  The 
encouraging  part  of  this  discovery  was  that  the  patients 
could  quickly  be  cured  and  the  hookworm  eradicated  by 
a  few  simple  improvements  in  sanitation.  Dr.  Stiles  had 
long  been  advocating  such  a  campaign  as  an  indispensable 
preliminary  to  improving  Southern  life.  But  the  hu- 
morous aspect  of  the  hookworm  always  interfered  with 
his  cause;  the  microbe  of  laziness  had  at  last  been  found! 
It  was  not  until  Dr.  Stiles,  in  the  course  of  this  Southern 
trip,  cornered  Page  in  a  Pullman  car,  that  he  finally  found 


THE   FORGOTTEN  MAN  99 

an  attentive  listener.  Page,  of  course,  had  his  prelimi- 
nary laugh,  but  then  the  hookworm  began  to  work  on  his 
imagination.  He  quickly  discovered  that  Dr.  Stiles  was 
no  fool;  and  before  the  expedition  was  finished,  he  had 
become  a  convert  and,  like  most  converts,  an  extremely 
zealous  one.  The  hookworm  now  filled  his  thoughts  as 
completely  as  it  did  those  of  his  friend ;  he  studied  it,  he 
talked  about  it;  and  characteristically  he  set  to  work  to 
see  what  could  be  done.  How  much  Southern  history 
did  the  thing  explain?  Was  it  not  forces  like  this,  and 
not  statesmen  and  generals,  that  really  controlled  the  des- 
tinies of  mankind?  Page's  North  Carolina  country  people 
had  for  generations  been  denounced  as  "crackers,"  and  as 
"hill-billies,"  but  here  was  the  discovery  that  the  great 
mass  of  them  were  ill — as  ill  as  the  tuberculosis  patients  in 
the  Adirondacks.  Free  these  masses  from  the  enervating 
parasite  that  consumed  all  their  energies — for  Dr.  Stiles 
had  discovered  that  the  disease  afflicted  the  great  major- 
ity of  the  rural  classes — and  a  new  generation  would  re- 
sult. Naturally  the  cause  strongly  touched  Page's  sym- 
pathies. He  laid  the  case  before  the  ever  sympathetic 
Dr.  Buttrick,  but  here  again  progress  was  slow.  By 
hard  hammering,  however,  he  half  converted  Dr.  Butt- 
rick,  who,  in  turn,  took  the  case  of  the  hookworm  to  his 
old  associate,  Dr.  Frederick  T.  Gates.  What  Page  was 
determined  to  obtain  was  a  million  dollars  or  so  from 
Mr.  John  D.  Rockefeller,  for  the  purpose  of  engaging  in 
deadly  warfare  upon  this  pest.  This  was  the  proper  way 
to  produce  results:  first  persuade  Dr.  Buttrick,  then 
induce  him  to  persuade  Dr.  Gates,  who,  if  convinced, 
had  ready  access  to  the  great  treasure  house.  But  Dr. 
Gates  also  began  to  smile;  even  the  combined  elo- 
quence of  Page  and  Dr.  Buttrick  could  not  move  him. 
So  the  reform  marked  time  until  one  day  Dr.  Buttrick, 


100       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Dr.  Gates,  and  Dr.  Simon  Flexner,  the  Director  of  the 
Rockefeller  Institute,  happened  to  be  fellow  travellers — 
again  on  a  Pullman  car. 

"Dr.  Flexner,"  said  Dr.  Buttrick — this  for  the  benefit 
of  his  incredulous  friend — "what  is  the  scientific  standing 
of  Dr.  Charles  W.  Stiles?" 

"Very,  very  high,"  came  the  immediate  response,  and 
at  this  Dr.  Gates  pricked  up  his  ears.  Yet  the  subse- 
quent conversation  disclosed  that  Dr.  Flexner  was  un- 
familiar with  the  Stiles  hookworm  work.  He,  too,  smiled 
at  the  idea,  but,  like  Page  his  smile  was  not  one  of 
ridicule. 

"If  Dr.  Stiles  believes  this,"  was  his  dictum,  "it  is 
something  to  be  taken  most  seriously." 

As  Dr.  Flexner  is  probably  the  leading  medical  scientist 
in  the  United  States,  his  judgment  at  once  lifted  the  hook- 
worm issue  to  a  new  plane.  Dr.  Gates  ceased  laughing 
and  events  now  moved  rapidly.  Mr.  Rockefeller  gave  a 
million  dollars  to  a  sanitary  commission  for  the  eradica- 
tion of  the  hookworm  in  the  Southern  States,  and  of  this 
Page  became  a  charter  member.  In  this  way  an  enterprise 
that  is  the  greatest  sanitary  and  health  reform  of  modern 
times  had  its  beginnings.  So  great  was  the  success  of  the 
Hookworm  Commission  in  the  South,  so  many  thousands 
were  almost  daily  restored  to  health  and  usefulness,  that 
Mr.  Rockefeller  extended  its  work  all  over  the  world — to 
India,  Egypt,  China,  Australia,  to  all  sections  that  fall 
within  the  now  accurately  located  "hookworm  belt." 
Out  of  it  grew  the  great  International  Health  Commission, 
also  endowed  with  unlimited  millions  of  Rockefeller  money, 
which  is  engaged  in  stamping  out  disease  and  promoting 
medical  education  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe.  Dr.  Stiles 
and  Page 's  associates  on  the  General  Education  Board  at- 
tribute the  origin  of  this  work  to  the  simple  fact  that  Page, 


Walter  H.  Page  (1899),  from  a  photograph  taken  when  he  was 
editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly 


Dr.  Wallace  Buttrick,  President  of  the  General  Education  Board 


"THE  FORGOTTEN  MAN"  101 

great  humourist  that  he  was,  could  temper  his  humour 
with  intelligence,  and  could  therefore  perceive  the  point 
at  which  a  joke  ceased  to  be  a  joke  and  actually  concealed 
a  truth  of  the  most  far-reaching  importance  to  mankind. 

Page  enjoyed  the  full  results  of  this  labour  one  night  in 
the  autumn  of  1913,  when  Dr.  Wickliffe  Rose,  the  head  of 
the  International  Health  Board,  came  to  London  to  discuss 
the  possibility  of  beginning  hookworm  work  in  the  British 
Empire,  especially  in  Egypt  and  India.  Page,  as  Am- 
bassador, arranged  a  dinner  at  the  Marlborough  Club, 
attended  by  the  leading  medical  scientists  of  the  kingdom 
and  several  members  of  the  Cabinet.  Dr.  Rose's  de- 
scription of  his  work  made  a  deep  impression.  He  was 
informed  that  the  British  Government  was  only  too  ready 
to  cooperate  with  the  Health  Board.  When  the  discus- 
sion was  ended  the  Right  Honourable  Lewis  Harcourt, 
the  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies,  concluded  an 
eloquent  address  with  these  words: 

"The  time  will  come  when  we  shall  look  back  on  this 
evening  as  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  in  British  colonial 
administration." 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    WILSONIAN    ERA    BEGINS 


IT  WAS  Page's  interest  in  the  material  and  spiritual 
elevation  of  the  masses  that  first  directed  his  attention 
to  the  Presidential  aspirations  of  Woodrow  Wilson.  So 
much  history  has  been  made  since  1912  that  the  public 
questions  which  then  stirred  the  popular  mind  have 
largely  passed  out  of  recollection.  Yet  the  great  rallying 
cry  of  that  era  was  democracy,  spelled  with  a  small  "d." 
In  the  fifty  years  since  the  Civil  War  only  one  Demo- 
cratic President  had  occupied  the  White  House.  The 
Republicans'  long  lease  of  power  had  produced  certain 
symptoms  which  their  political  foes  now  proceeded  to 
describe  as  great  public  abuses.  The  truth  of  the  matter, 
of  course,  is  that  neither  political  virtue  nor  political 
depravity  was  the  exclusive  possession  of  either  of  the 
great  national  organizations.  The  Republican  party, 
especially  under  the  enlightened  autocracy  of  Roosevelt, 
had  started  such  reforms  as  conservation,  the  improve- 
ment of  country  life,  the  regulation  of  the  railroads,  and 
the  warfare  on  the  trusts,  and  had  shown  successful  in- 
terest in  such  evidences  of  the  new  day  as  child  labour  laws, 
employer's  liability  laws,  corrupt  practice  acts,  direct 
primaries  and  the  popular  election  of  United  States  Sena- 
tors— not  all  perhaps  wise  as  methods,  but  all  certainly 
inspired  with  a  new  conception  of  democratic  government. 
Roosevelt  also  had  led  in  the  onslaught  on  that  corpora- 
tion influence  which,  after  all,  constituted  the  great 

102 


THE   WILSONIAN   ERA    BEGINS  103 

problem  of  American  politics.  But  Mr.  Taft  's  adminis- 
tration had  impressed  many  men,  and  especially  Page,  as 
a  discouraging  slump  back  into  the  ancient  system.  Page 
was  never  blind  to  the  inadequacies  of  his  own  party; 
the  three  campaigns  of  Bryan  and  his  extensive  influence 
with  the  Democratic  masses  at  times  caused  him  deep 
despair;  that  even  the  corporations  had  extended  their 
tentacles  into  the  ranks  of  Jefferson  was  all  too  obvious 
a  fact;  yet  the  Democratic  party  at  that  time  Page 
regarded  as  the  most  available  instrument  for  embody- 
ing in  legislation  and  practice  the  new  things  in  which 
he  most  believed.  Above  all,  the  Democratic  party  in 
1912  possessed  one  asset  to  which  the  Republicans  could 
lay  no  claim — a  new  man,  a  new  leader,  the  first  states- 
man who  had  crossed  its  threshold  since  Grover  Cleve- 
land. 

Like  many  scholarly  Americans,  Page  had  been  charmed 
by  the  intellectual  brilliancy  of  Woodrow  Wilson.  The 
utter  commonplaceness  of  much  of  what  passes  for  po- 
litical thinking  in  this  country  had  for  years  discouraged 
him.  American  political  life  may  have  possessed  energy, 
character,  even  greatness;  but  it  was  certainly  lacking  in 
distinction.  It  was  this  new  quality  that  Wilson 
brought,  and  it  was  this  that  attracted  thousands  of 
cultivated  Americans  to  his  standard,  irrespective  of 
party.  The  man  was  an  original  thinker ;  he  exercised  the 
priceless  possession  of  literary  style.  He  entertained; 
he  did  not  weary;  even  his  temperamental  deficiencies, 
which  were  apparent  to  many  observers  in  1912,  had 
at  least  the  advantage  that  attaches  to  the  interesting  and 
the  unusual. 

What  Page  and  thousands  of  other  public-spirited  men 
saw  in  Wilson  was  a  leader  of  fine  intellectual  gifts  who 
was  prepared  to  devote  his  splendid  energies  to  making 


104       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

life  more  attractive  and  profitable  to  the  "Forgotten 
Man."  Here  was  the  opportunity  then,  to  embody  in 
one  imaginative  statesman  all  the  interest  which  for  a 
generation  had  been  accumulating  in  favour  of  the 
democratic  revival.  At  any  rate,  after  thirty  years  of 
Republican  half-success  and  half-failure,  here  was  the 
chance  for  a  new  deal.  Amid  a  mob  of  shopworn  pub- 
lic men,  here  was  one  who  had  at  least  the  charm  of 
novelty. 

Page  had  known  Mr.  Wilson  for  thirty  years,  and  all 
this  time  the  Princeton  scholar  had  seemed  to  him  to  be 
one  of  the  most  helpful  influences  at  work  in  the  United 
States.  As  already  noted  Page  had  met  the  future  Pres- 
ident when  he  was  serving  a  journalistic  apprenticeship 
in  Atlanta,  Georgia.  Wilson  was  then  spending  his  days 
in  a  dingy  law  office  and  was  putting  to  good  use  the  time 
consumed  in  waiting  for  the  clients  who  never  came  by 
writing  that  famous  book  on  "Congressional  Government" 
which  first  lifted  his  name  out  of  obscurity.  This  work, 
the  product  of  a  man  of  twenty-nine,  was  perhaps  the 
first  searching  examination  to  which  the  American  Con- 
gressional system  had  ever  been  subjected.  It  brought 
Wilson  a  professorship  at  the  newly  established  Bryn 
Mawr  College  and  drew  to  him  other  growing  minds  like 
Page's.  "Watch  that  man!"  was  Page's  admonition  to 
his  friends.  Wilson  then  went  into  academic  work  and 
Page  plunged  into  the  exactions  of  daily  and  periodical 
journalism,  but  Page 's  papers  show  that  the  two  men  had 
kept  in  touch  with  each  other  during  the  succeeding  thirty 
years.  These  papers  include  a  collection  of  letters  from 
Woodrow  Wilson,  the  earliest  of  which  is  dated  October 
30,  1885,  when  the  future  President  was  beginning  his 
career  at  Bryn  Mawr.  He  was  eager  to  come  to  New 
York,  Wilson  said,  and  discuss  with  Page  "half  a  hundred 


THE    WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  105 

topics"  suggested  by  "Congressional  Government."  The 
atmosphere  at  Bryn  Mawr  was  evidently  not  stimulating. 
"Such  a  talk  would  give  me  a  chance  to  let  off  some  of  the 
enthusiasm  I  am  just  now  painfully  stirring  up  in  enforced 
silence."  The  Forum  and  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  when 
Page  was  editor,  showed  many  traces  of  his  interest  in 
Wilson,  who  was  one  of  his  most  frequent  contributors. 
When  Wilson  became  President  of  Princeton,  he  occasion- 
ally called  upon  his  old  Atlantic  friend  for  advice.  He 
writes  to  Page  on  various  matters — to  ask  for  suggestions 
about  filling  a  professorship  or  a  lectureship;  and  there 
are  also  references  to  the  difficulties  Wilson  is  having  with 
the  Princeton  trustees. 

Page's  letters  also  portray  the  new  hopes  with  which 
Wilson  inspired  him.  One  of  his  best  loved  correspond- 
ents was  Henry  Wallace,  editor  of  Wallace's  Farmer,  a 
homely  and  genial  Rooseveltian.  Page  was  one  of  those 
who  immensely  admired  Roosevelt's  career;  but  he  re- 
garded him  as  a  man  who  had  finished  his  work,  at  least 
in  domestic  affairs,  and  whose  great  claim  upon  posterity 
would  be  as  the  stimulator  of  the  American  conscience. 
"I  see  you  are  coming  around  to  Wilson,"  Page  writes, 
"and  in  pretty  rapid  fashion.  I  assure  you  that  that  is 
the  solution  of  the  problem.  I  have  known  him  since  we 
were  boys,  and  I  have  been  studying  him  lately  with  a 
great  deal  of  care.  I  haven 't  any  doubt  but  that  is  the 
way  out.  The  old  labels  'Democrat'  and  'Republican' 
have  ceased  to  have  any  meaning,  not  only  in  my  mind 
and  in  yours,  but  I  think  in  the  minds  of  nearly  ah1  the 
people.  Don 't  you  feel  that  way  P  " 

The  campaign  of  1912  was  approaching  its  end  when 
this  letter  was  written;  and  no  proceeding  in  American 
politics  had  so  aroused  Page's  energies.  He  had  himself 
played  a  part  in  Wilson 's  nomination.  He  was  one  of  the 


106       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

first  to  urge  the  Princeton  President  to  seize  the  great  op- 
portunity that  was  rising  before  him.  These  suggestions 
were  coming  from  many  sources  in  the  summer  of  1910; 
Mr.  Wilson  was  about  to  retire  from  the  Presidency  of 
Princeton;  the  movement  had  started  to  make  him  Gov- 
ernor of  New  Jersey,  and  it  was  well  understood  that  this 
was  merely  intended  as  the  first  step  to  the  White  House. 
But  Mr.  Wilson  was  himself  undecided;  to  escape  the 
excitement  of  the  moment  he  had  retired  to  a  country 
house  at  Lyme,  Connecticut.  In  this  place,  in  response 
to  a  letter,  Page  now  sought  him  out.  His  visit  was  a 
plea  that  Mr.  Wilson  should  accept  his  proffered  fate; 
the  Governorship  of  New  Jersey,  then  the  Presidency, 
and  the  opportunity  to  promote  the  causes  in  which 
both  men  believed. 

"But  do  you  think  I  can  do  it,  Page?"  asked  the  hesi- 
tating Wilson. 

"I  am  sure  you  can":  and  then  Page  again,  with  his 
customary  gusto,  launched  into  his  persuasive  argument. 
His  host  at  one  moment  would  assent;  at  another  present 
the  difficulties;  it  was  apparent  that  he  was  having  trouble 
in  reaching  a  decision.  To  what  extent  Page's  conver- 
sation converted  him  the  record  does  not  disclose;  it  is 
apparent,  however,  that  when,  in  the  next  two  years, 
difficulties  came,  his  mind  seemed  naturally  to  turn  in 
Page's  direction.  Especially  noticeable  is  it  that  he  appeals 
to  Page  for  help  against  his  fool  friends.  An  indiscreet 
person  in  New  Jersey  is  booming  Mr.  Wilson  for  the 
Presidency ;  the  activity  of  such  a  man  inevitably  brings 
ridicule  upon  the  object  of  his  attention ;  cannot  Page  find 
some  kindly  way  of  calling  him  offP  Mr.  Wilson  asks 
Page's  advice  about  a  campaign  manager,  and  incidentally 
expresses  his  own  aversion  to  a  man  of  "large  calibre" 
for  this  engagement.  There  were  occasional  conferences 


THE  WILSONIAN  ERA  BEGINS  107 

with  Mr.  Wilson  on  his  Presidential  prospects,  one  of 
which  took  place  at  Page's  New  York  apartment.  Page 
was  also  the  man  who  brought  Mr.  Wilson  and  Colonel 
House  together ;  this  had  the  immediate  result  of  placing 
the  important  state  of  Texas  on  the  Wilson  side,  and,  as 
its  ultimate  consequence,  brought  about  one  of  the  most 
important  associations  in  the  history  of  American  politics. 
Page  had  known  Colonel  House  for  many  years  and  was 
the  advocate  who  convinced  the  sagacious  Texan  that 
Woodrow  Wilson  was  the  man.  Wilson  also  acquired  the 
habit  of  referring  to  Page  men  who  offered  themselves  to 
him  as  volunteer  workers  in  his  cause.  "Go  and  see 
Walter  Page"  was  his  usual  answer  to  this  kind  of  an  ap- 
proach. But  Page  was  not  a  collector  of  delegates  to 
nominating  conventions ;  not  his  the  art  of  manipulating 
these  assemblages  in  the  interest  of  a  favoured  man;  yet 
his  services  to  the  Wilson  cause,  while  less  demonstra- 
tive, were  almost  as  practical.  His  talent  lay  in  exposi- 
tion; and  he  now  took  upon  himself  the  task  of  spreading 
Wilson's  fame.  In  his  own  magazine  and  in  books  pub- 
lished by  his  firm,  in  letters  to  friends,  in  personal  con- 
ferences, he  set  forth  Wilson's  achievements.  Page  also 
persuaded  Wilson  to  make  his  famous  speechmaking 
trip  through  the  Western  States  in  1911  and  this  was  per- 
haps his  largest  definite  contribution  to  the  Wilson  cam- 
paign. It  was  in  the  course  of  this  historic  pilgrimage  that 
the  American  masses  obtained  their  first  view  of  a  pre- 
viously too-much  hidden  figure. 

On  election  day  Page  wrote  the  President-elect  a  letter 
of  congratulation  which  contains  one  item  of  the  greatest 
interest.  When  the  time  came  for  the  new  President  to 
deliver  his  first  message  to  Congress,  he  surprised  the 
country  by  abandoning  the  usual  practice  of  sending  a 
long  written  communication  to  be  droned  out  by  a  read- 


108       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

ing  clerk  to  a  yawning  company  of  legislators.  He  ap- 
peared in  person  and  read  the  document  himself.  As 
President  Harding  has  followed  his  example  it  seems  likely 
that  this  innovation,  which  certainly  represents  a  great 
improvement  over  the  old  routine,  has  become  the  estab- 
lished custom.  The  origin  of  the  idea  therefore  has 
historic  value. 

To  Woodrow  Wilson 

Garden  City,  N.  Y. 
Election  Day,  1912.     [Nov.  5] 
MY  DEAR  MR.  PRESIDENT-ELECT  : 

Before  going  into  town  to  hear  the  returns,  I  write  you 
my  congratulations.  Even  if  you  were  defeated,  I  should 
still  congratulate  you  on  putting  a  Presidential  campaign 
on  a  higher  level  than  it  has  ever  before  reached  since 
Washington's  time.  Your  grip  became  firmer  and  your 
sweep  wider  every  week.  It  was  inspiring  to  watch  the 
unfolding  of  the  deep  meaning  of  it  and  to  see  the  people 's 
grasp  of  the  main  idea.  It  was  fairly,  highly,  freely,  won, 
and  now  we  enter  the  Era  of  Great  Opportunity.  It 
is  hard  to  measure  the  extent  or  the  thrill  of  the  new  in- 
terest in  public  affairs  and  the  new  hope  that  you  have 
aroused  in  thousands  of  men  who  were  becoming  hopeless 
under  the  long-drawn-out  reign  of  privilege. 

To  the  big  burden  of  suggestions  that  you  are  receiving, 
may  I  add  these  small  ones? 

1.  Call  Congress  in  extra  session  mainly  to  revise  the 
tariff  and  incidentally  to  prepare  the  way  for  rural  credit 
societies. 

Mr.  Taft  set  the  stage  admirably  in  1909  when  he 
promptly  called  an  extra  session;  but  then  he  let  the 
villain  run  the  play.  To  get  the  main  job  in  hand  at 
once  will  be  both  dramatic  and  effective  and  it  will  save 


THE    WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  ]  09 

time.  Moreover,  it  will  give  you  this  great  tactical  ad- 
vantage— you  can  the  better  keep  in  line  those  who  have 
debts  or  doubts  before  you  have  answered  their  importun- 
ities for  offices  and  for  favours. 

The  time  is  come  when  the  land  must  be  developed  by 
the  new  agriculture  and  farming  made  a  business.  This 
calls  for  money.  Every  acre  will  repay  a  reasonable  loan 
on  long  time  at  a  fair  interest  rate,  and  group-borrowing 
develops  the  men  quite  as  much  as  the  men  will  develop 
the  soil.  It  saved  the  German  Empire  and  is  remaking 
Italy.  And  this  is  the  proper  use  of  much  of  the  money 
that  now  flows  into  the  reach  of  the  credit  barons.  This 
building  up  of  farm  life  will  restore  the  equilibrium  of 
our  civilization  and,  besides,  will  prove  to  be  one  half  the 
solution  of  our  currency  and  credit  problem.  .  .  . 

2.  Set  your  trusted  friends  immediately  to  wrork,  every 
man  in  the  field  he  knows  best,  to  prepare  briefs  for  you 
on  such  great  subjects  and  departments  as  the  Currency, 
the  Post  Office,  Conservation,  Rural  Credit,  the  Agri- 
cultural Department,  which  has  the  most  direct  power 
for  good  to  the  most  people — to  make  our  farmers  as 
independent  as  Denmark's  and  to  give  our  best  country 
folk    the    dignity  of   the   old-time   English    gentleman 
— this  expert,  independent  information  to  compare  with 
your  own  knowledge  and  with  official  reports. 

3.  The  President  reads  (or  speaks)  his  Inaugural  to  the 
people.     Why  not  go  back  to  the  old  custom  of  himself 
delivering  his  Messages  to  Congress?    Would  that  not 
restore   a  feeling  of  comradeship  in  responsibility  and 
make  the  Legislative  branch  feel  nearer  to  the  Executive? 
Every  President  of  our  time  has  sooner  or  later  got  away 
with  Congress. 

I  cannot  keep  from  saying  what  a  new  thrill  of  hope  and 
tingle  of  expectancy  I  feel — as  of  a  great  event  about  to 


110       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

happen  for  our  country  and  for  the  restoration  of  popu- 
lar government;  for  you  will  keep  your  rudder  true. 

Most  heartily  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 
To  Governor  Wilson, 
Princeton,  N.  J. 

Page  was  one  of  the  first  of  Mr.  Wilson's  friends  to 
discuss  with  the  President-elect  the  new  legislative  pro- 
gramme. The  memorandum  which  he  made  of  this 
interview  shows  how  little  any  one,  in  1912,  appreciated 
the  tremendous  problems  that  Mr.  Wilson  would  have  to 
face.  Only  domestic  matters  then  seemed  to  have  the 
slightest  importance.  Especially  significant  is  the  fact 
that  even  at  this  early  date,  Page  was  chiefly  impressed 
by  Mr.  Wilson's  "loneliness." 

Memorandum  dated  November  15,  1912 

To  use  the  Government,  especially  the  Department  of 
Agriculture  and  the  Bureau  of  Education,  to  help  actively 
in  the  restoration  of  country  life — that's  the  great  chance 
for  Woodrow  Wilson,  ten  days  ago  elected  President. 
Precisely  how  well  he  understands  this  chance,  how  well, 
for  example,  he  understands  the  grave  difference  between 
the  Knapp  Demonstration  method  of  teaching  farmers 
and  the  usual  Agricultural  College  method  of  lecturing  to 
them,  and  what  he  knows  about  the  rising  movement  for 
country  schools  of  the  right  sort,  and  agricultural  credit 
societies — how  all  this  great  constructive  problem  of 
Country  Life  lies  in  his  mind,  who  knows?  I  do  not. 
If  I  do  not  know,  who  does  know?  The  political  mana- 
gers who  have  surrounded  him  these  six  months  have 
now  done  their  task.  They  know  nothing  of  this  Big 
Chance  and  Great  Outlook.  And  for  the  moment  they 


THE   WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  111 

have  left  him  alone.  In  two  days  he  will  go  to  Bermuda 
for  a  month  to  rest  and  to  meditate.  He  ought  to  meditate 
on  this  Constructive  programme.  It  seemed  my  duty 
to  go  and  tell  him  about  it.  I  asked  for  an  interview  and 
he  telegraphed  to  go  to-day  at  five  o'clock. 

Arthur  and  I  drove  in  the  car  and  reached  Princeton 
just  before  five — a  beautiful  drive  of  something  less  than 
four  hours  from  New  York.  Presently  we  arrived  at  the 
Wilson  house. 

"The  Governor  is  engaged,"  I  was  informed  by  the 
man  who  opened  the  door.  "He  can  see  nobody.  He 
is  going  away  to-morrow." 

"I  have  an  appointment  with  him,"  said  I,  and  I  gave 
him  my  card. 

"I  know  he  can't  see  anybody." 

"Will  you  send  my  card  in?" 

We  waited  at  the  door  till  the  maid  took  it  in  and 
returned  to  say  the  Governor  would  presently  come 
down. 

The  reception  room  had  a  desk  in  the  corner,  and  on  a 
row  of  chairs  across  the  whole  side  of  the  room  were 
piles  of  unopened  letters.  It  is  a  plain,  modestly  but 
decently  furnished  room,  such  as  you  would  expect  to 
find  in  the  modest  house  of  a  professor  at  Princeton. 
During  his  presidency  of  the  college,  he  had  lived  in  the 
President's  house  in  the  college  yard.  This  was  his  own 
house  of  his  professorial  days. 

"Hello,  Page,  come  out  here:  I  am  glad  to  see  you." 
There  he  stood  in  a  door  at  the  back  of  the  room,  which 
led  to  his  library  and  work  room.  "Come  back  here." 

"In  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds,  the  right  thing  does 
sometimes  happen,"  said  I. 

"Yes." 

"And  a  great  opportunity." 


112       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

He  smiled  and  was  cordial  and  said  some  pleasant 
words.  But  he  was  weary.  "I  have  cobwebs  in  my 
head."  He  was  not  depressed  but  oppressed — rather 
shy,  I  thought,  and  I  should  say  rather  lonely.  The 
campaign  noise  and  the  little  campaigners  were  hushed 
and  gone.  There  were  no  men  of  companionable  size 
about  him,  and  the  Great  Task  lay  before  him.  The 
Democratic  party  has  not  brought  forward  large  men  in 
public  life  during  its  long  term  of  exclusion  from  the 
Government;  and  the  newly  elected  President  has  had 
few  opportunities  and  a  very  short  time  to  make  acquaint- 
ances of  a  continental  kind.  This  little  college  town,  this 
little  hitherto  corrupt  state,  are  both  small. 

I  went  at  my  business  without  delay.  The  big  country- 
life  idea,  the  working  of  great  economic  forces  to  put  its 
vitalization  within  sight,  the  coming  equilibrium  by  the 
restoration  of  country  life — all  coincident  with  his  coming 
into  the  Presidency.  His  Administration  must  fall  in 
with  it,  guide  it,  further  it.  The  chief  instruments  are 
the  Agricultural  Department,  the  Bureau  of  Education, 
and  the  power  of  the  President  himself  to  bring  about 
Rural  Credit  Societies  and  similar  organized  helps.  He 
quickly  saw  the  difference  between  Demonstration  Work 
by  the  Agricultural  Department  and  the  plan  to  vote 
large  sums  to  agricultural  colleges  and  to  the  states  to 
build  up  schools. 

"Who  is  the  best  man  for  Secretary  of  Agriculture?" 

I  ought  to  have  known,  but  I  didn't.     For  who  is? 

"May  I  look  about  and  answer  your  question  later?" 

"Yes,  I  will  thank  you." 

"  I  wish  to  find  the  very  best  men  for  my  Cabinet,  re- 
gardless of  consequences.  I  do  not  forget  the  party  as 
an  instrument  of  government,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  do 
violence  to  it.  But  I  must  have  the  best  men  in  the 


THE   WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  113 

Nation" — with  a  very  solemn  tone  as  he  sat  bolt  upright, 
with  a  stern  look  on  his  face,  and  a  lonely  look. 

I  told  him  my  idea  of  the  country  school  that  must  be 
and  talked  of  the  Bureau  of  Education.  He  saw  quickly 
and  assented  to  all  my  propositions. 

And  then  we  talked  somewhat  more  conservatively  of 
Conservation,  about  which  he  knows  less. 

I  asked  if  he  would  care  to  have  me  make  briefs  about 
the  Agricultural  Department,  the  Bureau  of  Education, 
the  Rural  Credit  Societies,  and  Conservation.  "I  shall 
be  very  grateful,  if  it  be  not  too  great  a  sacrifice." 

I  had  gained  that  permission,  which  (if  he  respect  my 
opinion)  ought  to  guide  him  somewhat  toward  a  real 
understanding  of  how  the  Government  may  help  toward 
our  Great  Constructive  Problem. 

I  gained  also  the  impression  that  he  has  no  sympathy 
with  the  idea  of  giving  government  grants  to  schools  and 
agricultural  colleges — a  very  distinct  impression. 

I  had  been  with  him  an  hour  and  had  talked  (I  fear) 
too  much.  But  he  seemed  hearty  in  his  thanks.  He 
came  to  the  front  door  with  me,  insisted  on  helping  me 
on  with  my  coat,  envied  me  the  motor-car  drive  in  the 
night  back  to  New  York,  spoke  to  eight  or  ten  reporters 
who  had  crowded  into  the  hah1  for  their  interview — a 
most  undignified  method,  it  seemed  to  me,  for  a  President- 
elect to  reach  the  public;  I  stepped  out  on  the  muddy 
street,  and,  as  I  walked  to  the  Inn,  I  had  the  feeling  of 
the  man's  oppressive  loneliness  as  he  faced  his  great  task. 
There  is  no  pomp  of  circumstance,  nor  hardly  dignity 
in  this  setting,  except  the  dignity  of  his  seriousness  and 
his  loneliness. 

There  was  a  general  expectation  that  Page  would  become 
a  member  of  President  Wilson's  Cabinet,  and  the  place 


114       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

for  which  he  seemed  particularly  suited  was  the  Secretary- 
ship of  Agriculture.  The  smoke  of  battle  had  hardly 
passed  away,  therefore,  when  Page's  admirers  began 
bringing  pressure  to  bear  upon  the  President-elect. 
There  was  probably  no  man  in  the  United  States  who  had 
such  completely  developed  views  about  this  Department 
as  Page ;  and  it  is  not  improbable  that,  had  circumstances 
combined  to  offer  him  this  position,  he  would  have  ac- 
cepted it.  But  fate  in  matters  of  this  sort  is  sometimes 
kinder  than  a  man's  friends.  Page  had  a  great  horror  of 
anything  which  suggested  office-seeking,  and  the  cam- 
paign which  now  was  started  in  his  interest  greatly 
embarrassed  him.  He  wrote  Mr.  Wilson,  disclaiming 
all  responsibility  and  begging  him  to  ignore  these 
misguided  efforts.  As  the  best  way  of  checking  the 
movement,  Page  now  definitely  answered  Mr.  Wilson's 
question:  Who  was  the  best  man  for  the  Agricultural 
Department?  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  candidate 
whom  Page  nominated  in  this  letter — a  man  who  had 
been  his  friend  for  many  years  and  an  associate  on  the 
Southern  Education  Board — was  the  man  whom  Mr. 
Wilson  chose. 

To  Woodrow  Wilson 

Garden  City,  N.  Y. 

November  27,  1912. 
MY  DEAR  WILSON: 

I  send  you  (wrongly,  perhaps,  when  you  are  trying  to 
rest)  the  shortest  statement  that  I  could  make  about  the 
demonstration  field-work  of  the  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture. This  is  the  best  tool  yet  invented  to  shape  country 
life.  Other  (and  shorter)  briefs  will  be  ready  in  a  little 
while. 

You  asked  me  who  I  thought  was  the  best  man  for  Secre- 


THE    WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  115 

tary  of  Agriculture.  Houston,1 1  should  say,  of  the  men 
that  I  know.  You  will  find  my  estimate  of  him  in  the 
little  packet  of  memoranda.  Van  Hise2  may  be  as  good  or 
even  better  if  he  be  young  in  mind  and  adaptable  enough. 
But  he  seems  to  me  a  man  who  may  already  have  done 
his  big  job. 

I  answer  the  other  questions  you  asked  at  Princeton 
and  I  have  taken  the  liberty  to  send  some  memoranda 
about  a  few  other  men — on  the  theory  that  every  friend 
of  yours  ought  now  to  tell  you  with  the  utmost  frankness 
about  the  men  he  knows,  of  whom  you  may  be  thinking. 

The  building  up  of  the  countryman  is  the  big  con- 
structive job  of  our  time.  When  the  countryman  comes 
to  his  own,  the  town  man  will  no  longer  be  able  to  tax, 
and  to  concentrate  power,  and  to  bully  the  world. 

Very  heartily  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

To  Henry  Wallace 

Garden  City,  N.  Y. 

11  March,  1913. 
MY  DEAR  UNCLE  HENRY: 

What  a  letter  yours  is !  By  George !  we  must  get  on  the 
job,  you  and  I,  of  steering  the  world — get  on  it  a  little 
more  actively.  Else  it  may  run  amuck.  We  have 
frightful  responsibilities  in  this  matter.  The  subject 
weighs  the  more  deeply  and  heavily  on  me  because  I  am 
just  back  from  a  month's  vacation  in  North  Carolina, 
where  I  am  going  to  build  me  a  winter  and  old-age  bunga- 
low. No;  you  would  be  disappointed  if  you  went  out  of 


JMr.  David  F.  Houston,  ex-President  of  the  University  of  Texas,  and  in  1912 
Chancellor  of  the  Washington  University  of  St.  Louis. 

Charles  R.  Van  Hise,  President  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 


116       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

your  way  to  see  my  boys.  Moreover,  they  are  now 
merely  clearing  land.  They  sold  out  the  farm  they  put 
in  shape,  after  two  years'  work,  for  just  ten  tunes  what 
it  had  cost,  and  they  are  now  starting  another  one  de 
now.  About  a  year  hence,  they'll  have  something  to 
show.  And  next  winter,  when  my  house  is  built  down 
there,  I  want  you  to  come  and  see  me  and  see  that  coun- 
try. I'll  show  you  one  of  the  most  remarkable  farmers' 
clubs  you  ever  saw  and  many  other  interesting  things  as 
well — many,  very  many.  I'm  getting  into  this  farm 
business  in  dead  earnest.  That's  the  dickens  of  it:  how 
can  I  do  my  share  in  our  partnership  to  run  the  universe 
if  I  give  my  time  to  cotton-growing  problems?  It's  a 
tangled  world. 

Well,  bless  your  soul!  You  and  the  younger  Wallaces 
(my  regards  to  every  one  of  them)  and  Poe1 — you  are  all 
very  kind  to  think  of  me  for  that  difficult  place — too  dif- 
ficult by  far,  for  me.  Besides,  it  would  have  cost  me  my 
life.  If  I  were  to  go  into  public  life,  I  should  have  had 
to  sell  my  whole  interest  here.  This  would  have  meant 
that  I  could  never  make  another  dollar.  More  than  that, 
I'd  have  thrown  away  a  trade  that  I've  learned  and  gone 
at  another  one  that  I  know  little  about — a  bad  change, 
surely.  So,  you  see,  there  never  was  anything  serious 
in  this  either  in  my  mind  or  in  the  President's.  Arthur 
hit  it  off  right  one  day  when  somebody  asked  him: 

"Is  your  father  going  to  take  the  Secretaryship  of 
Agriculture?" 

He repli ed :  "Not seriously . ' ' 

Besides,  the  President  didn't  ask  me!  He  knew  too 
much  for  that. 

But  he  did  ask  me  who  would  be  a  good  man  and  I 
said  "Houston."  You  are  not  quite  fair  to  him  in  your 

'Clarence  Poe,  editor  of  The  Progressive  Farmer. 


Charles  D.  Mclver  of  Greensboro,  North  Carolina,  a 
leader  in  the  cause  of  Southern  Education 


Woodrow  Wilson  in  1912 


THE   WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  117 

editorial.  He  does  know — knows  much  and  well  and  is 
the  strongest  man  in  the  Cabinet — in  promise.  The 
farmers  don't  yet  know  him:  that's  the  only  trouble. 
Give  him  a  chance. 

I've  "put  it  up"  to  the  new  President  and  to  the  new 
Secretary  to  get  on  the  job  immediately  of  organizing 
country  life.  I've  drawn  up  a  scheme  (a  darned  good  one, 
too)  which  they  have.  I  have  good  hope  that  they'll 
get  to  it  soon  and  to  the  thing  that  we  have  all  been 
working  toward.  I'm  very  hopeful  about  this.  I  told 
them  both  last  week  to  get  their  minds  on  this  before  the 
wolves  devour  them.  *  Don't  you  think  it  better  to  work 
with  the  Government  and  to  try  to  steer  it  right  than  to 
go  off  organizing  other  agencies? 

God  pity  our  new  masters!  The  President  is  all  right. 
He's  sound,  earnest,  courageous.  But  his  party  I  I  still 
have  some  muscular  strength.  In  certain  remote  regions 
they  still  break  stones  in  the  road  by  hand.  Now  I'll 
break  stones  before  I'd  have  a  job  at  Washington  now. 
I  spent  four  days  with  them  last  week — the  new  crowd. 
They'll  try  their  best.  I  think  they'll  succeed.  But,  if 
they  do  succeed  and  survive,  they'll  come  out  of  the 
scrimmage  bleeding  and  torn.  We've  got  to  stand  off  and 
run  'em,  Uncle  Henry.  That's  the  only  hope  I  see  for  the 
country.  Don't  damn  Houston,  then,  beforehand.  He's 
a  real  man.  Let's  get  on  the  job  and  tell  'em  how. 

Now,  when  you  come  East,  come  before  you  need  to 
get  any  of  your  meetings  and  strike  a  bee-line  for  Garden 
City;  and  don't  be  in  a  hurry  when  you  get  here.  If  a 
Presbyterian  meeting  be  necessary  for  your  happiness, 
I'll  drum  up  one  on  the  Island  for  you.  And,  of  course, 
you  must  come  to  my  house  and  pack  up  right  and  get 
your  legs  steady  sometime  before  you  sail — you  and 
Mrs.  Wallace:  will  she  not  go  with  you? 


118       THE    LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

In  the  meantime,  don't  be  disgruntled.  We  can  steer 
the  old  world  right,  if  you'll  just  keep  your  shoulder  to 
the  wheel.  We'll  work  it  all  out  here  in  the  summer  and 
verify  it  all  (including  your  job  of  setting  the  effete 
kingdoms  of  Europe  all  right) — we'll  verify  it  all  next 
winter  down  in  North  Carolina.  I  think  things  have 
got  such  a  start  that  they'll  keep  going  in  some  fashion, 
till  we  check  up  the  several  items,  political,  ethical,  agri- 
cultural, journalistic,  and  international.  God  bless  us 
all! 

Most  heartily  always  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

Though  Mr.  Wilson  did  not  offer  Page  the  Agricultural 
Department,  he  much  desired  to  have  him  in  his  Cabinet, 
and  had  already  decided  upon  him  for  a  post  which  the 
new  President  probably  regarded  as  more  important — 
the  Interior.  The  narrow  margin  with  which  Page 
escaped  this  responsibility  illustrates  again  the  slender 
threads  upon  which  history  is  constructed.  The  episode 
is  also  not  without  its  humorous  side.  For  there  was 
only  one  reason  why  Page  did  not  enter  the  Cabinet  as 
Secretary  of  the  Interior ;  and  that  is  revealed  in  the  above 
letter  to  "Uncle  Henry";  he  was  so  busy  planning  his 
new  house  in  the  sandhills  of  North  Carolina  that,  while 
cabinets  were  being  formed  and  great  decisions  taken, 
he  was  absent  from  New  York.  A  short  tune  before  the 
inauguration,  Mr.  Wilson  asked  Colonel  House  to  ar- 
range a  meeting  with  Page  in  the  latter's  apartment. 
Mr.  Wilson  wished  to  see  him  on  a  Saturday;  the  pur- 
pose was  to  offer  him  the  Secretaryship  of  the  Interior. 
Colonel  House  called  up  Page's  office  at  Garden  City  and 
was  informed  that  he  was  in  North  Carolina.  Colonel 
House  then  telegraphed  asking  Page  to  start  north  in> 


THE   WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  119 

mediately,  and  suggesting  the  succeeding  Monday  as  a 
good  time  for  the  interview.  A  reply  was  at  once  re- 
ceived from  Page  that  he  was  on  his  way. 

Meanwhile  certain  of  Mr.  Wilson's  advisers  had  heard 
of  the  plan  and  were  raising  objections.  Page  was  a 
Southerner;  the  Interior  Department  has  supervision 
over  the  pension  bureau,  with  its  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  Civil  War  veterans  as  pensioners;  moreover,  Page  was 
an  outspoken  enemy  of  the  whole  pension  system  and 
had  led  several  "campaigns"  against  it.  The  appoint- 
ment would  never  do!  Mr.  Wilson  himself  was  per- 
suaded that  it  would  be  a  mistake. 

"But  what  are  we  going  to  do  about  Page?"  asked 
Colonel  House.  "I  have  summoned  him  from  North 
Carolina  on  important  business.  What  excuse  shall  I 
give  for  bringing  him  way  up  here?" 

But  the  President-elect  was  equal  to  the  emergency. 

"Here's  the  cabinet  list,"  he  drily  replied.  "Show  it 
to  Page.  Tell  him  these  are  the  people  I  have  about  de- 
cided to  appoint  and  ask  him  what  he  thinks  of  them. 
Then  he  will  assume  that  we  summoned  him  to  get  his 
advice." 

When  Page  made  his  appearance,  therefore,  Colonel 
House  gave  him  the  list  of  names  and  solemnly  asked  him 
what  he  thought  of  them.  The  first  name  that  attracted 
Page's  attention  was  that  of  Josephus  Daniels,  as  Secre- 
tary of  the  Navy.  Page  at  once  expressed  his  energetic 
dissent. 

"Why,  don't  you  think  he  is  Cabinet  timber?"  asked 
Colonel  House. 

"Timber!"  Page  fairly  shouted.  "He  isn't  a  splinter! 
Have  you  got  a  time  table?  When  does  the  next  train 
leave  for  Princeton?" 

In  a  couple  of  hours  Page  was  sitting  with  Mr.  Wilson, 


120       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

earnestly  protesting  against  Mr.  Daniels's  appointment. 
But  Mr.  Wilson  said  that  he  had  already  offered  Mr. 
Daniels  the  place. 

ii 

About  the  time  of  Wilson's  election  a  great  calamity 
befell  one  of  Page's  dearest  friends.  Dr.  Edwin  A.  Alder- 
man, the  President  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  one  of 
the  pioneer  educational  forces  in  the  Southern  States, 
and  for  years  an  associate  of  Page  on  the  General  Edu- 
cation Board,  was  stricken  with  tuberculosis.  He  was 
taken  to  Saranac,  and  here  a  patient  course  of  treatment 
happily  restored  him  to  health.  One  of  the  dreariest 
aspects  of  such  an  experience  is  its  tediousness  and  loneli- 
ness. Yet  the  maintenance  of  one's  good  spirits  and 
optimism  is  an  essential  part  of  the  treatment.  And  it 
was  in  this  work  that  Page  now  proved  an  indispensable 
aid  to  the  medical  men.  As  soon  as  Dr.  Alderman  found 
himself  stretched  out,  a  weak  and  isolated  figure,  cut  off 
from  those  activities  and  interests  which  had  been  his 
inspiration  for  forty  years,  with  no  companions  except 
his  own  thoughts  and  a  few  sufferers  like  himself,  letters 
began  to  arrive  with  weekly  regularity  from  the  man 
whom  he  always  refers  to  as  "dear  old  Page."  The 
gayety  and  optimism  of  these  letters,  the  lively  com- 
ments which  they  passed  upon  men  and  things,  and  their 
wholesome  and  genial  philosophy,  were  largely  instru- 
mental, Dr.  Alderman  has  always  believed,  in  his  re- 
covery. Their  effect  was  so  instant  and  beneficial  that 
the  physicians  asked  to  have  them  read  to  the  other 
patients,  who  also  derived  abounding  comfort  and  joy 
from  them.  The  whole  episode  was  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  in  Page's  life,  and  brings  out  again  that  gift 
for  friendship  which  was  perhaps  his  finest  quality.  For 


THE   WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  121 

this  reason  it  is  a  calamity  that  most  of  these  letters  have 
not  been  preserved.  The  few  that  have  survived  are 
interesting  not  only  in  themselves;  they  reveal  Page's 
innermost  thoughts  on  the  subject  of  Woodrow  Wilson. 
That  he  admired  the  new  President  is  evident,  yet  these 
letters  make  it  clear  that,  even  in  1912  and  1913,  there 
was  something  about  Mr.  Wilson  that  caused  him  to 
hesitate,  to  entertain  doubts,  to  wonder  how,  after  all, 
the  experiment  was  to  end. 

To  Edwin  A.  Alderman 

Garden  City,  L.  I. 

December  31,  1912. 
*   MY  DEAR  ED  ALDERMAN  : 

I  have  a  new  amusement,  a  new  excitement,  a  new 
study,  as  you  have  and  as  we  all  have  who  really  believe 
in  democracy — a  new  study,  a  new  hope,  and  sometimes 
a  new  fear;  and  its  name  is  Wilson.  I  have  for  many 
years  regarded  myself  as  an  interested,  but  always  a 
somewhat  detached,  outsider,  believing  that  the  demo- 
cratic idea  was  real  and  safe  and  lifting,  if  we  could  ever 
get  it  put  into  action,  contenting  myself  ever  with  such 
patches  of  it  as  time  and  accident  and  occasion  now  and 
then  sewed  on  our  gilded  or  tattered  garments.  But  now 
it  is  come — the  real  thing;  at  any  rate  a  man  somewhat 
like  us,  whose  thought  and  aim  and  dream  are  our  thought 
and  aim  and  dream.  That's  enormously  exciting!  I 
didn't  suppose  I'd  ever  become  so  interested  in  a  general 
proposition  or  in  a  governmental  hope. 

Will  he  do  it?  Can  he  do  it?  Can  anybody  do  it? 
How  can  we  help  him  do  it?  Now  that  the  task  is  on 
him,  does  he  really  understand?  Do  I  understand  him 
and  he  me?  There's  a  certain  unreality  about  it. 

The  man  himself — I  find  that  nobody  quite  knows  him 


122       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

now.  Alas!  I  wonder  if  he  quite  knows  himself.  Tem- 
peramentally very  shy,  having  lived  too  much  alone  and 
far  too  much  with  women  (how  I  wish  two  of  his  daugh- 
ters were  sons!)  this  Big  Thing  having  descended  on  him 
before  he  knew  or  was  quite  prepared  for  it,  thrust  into  a 
whirl  of  self-seeking  men  even  while  he  is  trying  to  think 
out  the  theory  of  the  duties  that  press,  knowing  the 
necessity  of  silence,  surrounded  by  small  people — well,  I 
made  up  my  mind  that  his  real  friends  owed  it  to  him  and 
to  what  we  all  hope  for,  to  break  over  his  reserve  and  to 
volunteer  help.  He  asks  for  conferences  with  official  folk 
— only,  I  think.  So  I  began  to  write  memoranda  about 
those  subjects  of  government  about  which  I  know  some- 
thing and  have  opinions  and  about  men  who  are  or  who 
may  be  related  to  them.  It  has  been  great  sport  to 
set  down  in  words  without  any  reserve  precisely  what 
you  think.  It  is  imprudent,  of  course,  as  most  things 
worth  doing  are.  But  what  have  I  to  lose,  I  who  have 
my  life  now  planned  and  laid  out  and  have  got  far  beyond 
the  reach  of  gratitude  or  hatred  or  praise  or  blame  or 
fear  of  any  man?  I  sent  him  some  such  memoranda. 
Here  came  forthwith  a  note  of  almost  abject  thanks.  I 
sent  more.  Again,  such  a  note — written  in  his  own  hand. 
Yet  not  a  word  of  what  he  thinks.  The  Sphinx  was  gar- 
rulous in  comparison.  Then  here  comes  a  mob  of  my 
good  friends  crying  for  office  for  me.  So  I  sent  a  ten- 
line  note,  by  the  hand  of  my  secretary,  saying  that  this 
should  not  disturb  my  perfect  frankness  nor  (I  knew  it 
would  not)  his  confidence.  Again,  a  note  in  his  own 
hand,  of  perfect  understanding  and  with  the  very  glow  of 
gratitude.  And  he  talks — generalities  to  the  public. 
Perhaps  that's  all  he  can  talk  now.  Wise?  Yes.  But 
does  he  know  the  men  about  him?  Does  he  really  know 
men?  Nobody  knows.  Thus  'twixt  fear  and  hope  I 


THE   WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  123 

see — suspense.  I'll  swear  I  can't  doubt,  I  can't  beb'eve. 
Whether  it  is  going  to  work  out  or  not — whether  he  or 
anybody  can  work  it  out  of  the  haze  of  theory — nobody 
knows;  and  nobody's  speculation  is  better  than  mine  and 
mine  is  worthless. 

This  is  the  game,  this  is  the  excitement,  this  is  the 
doubthope  and  the  hopedoubt.  I  send  this  word  about 
it  to  you  (I  could  and  would  to  nobody  else :  you're  snow- 
bound, you  see,  and  don't  write  much  and  don't  see  many 
people:  restrain  your  natural  loquacity!)  But  for  the 
love  of  heaven  tell  me  if  you  see  any  way  very  clearly. 
It's  a  kind  of  misty  dream  to  me. 

I  ask  myself  why  should  I  concern  myself  about  it? 
Of  course  the  answer's  easy  and  I  think  creditable:  I  do 
profoundly  hold  this  democratic  faith  and  believe  that 
it  can  be  worked  into  action  among  men;  and  it  may  be 
I  shall  yet  see  it  done.  That's  the  secret  of  my  interest. 
But  when  this  awful  office  descends  on  a  man,  it  op- 
presses him,  changes  him,  you  are  not  quite  so  sure  of 
him,  you  doubt  whether  he  knows  himself  or  you  in  the 
old  way. 

And  I  find  among  men  the  very  crudest  ideas  of  gov- 
ernment or  of  democracy.  They  have  not  thought  the 
thing  out.  They  hold  no  ordered  creed  of  human  organ- 
ization or  advancement.  They  leave  all  to  chance  and 
think,  when  they  think  at  all,  that  chance  determines  it. 
And  yet  the  Great  Hope  persists,  and  I  think  I  have 
grown  an  inch  by  it. 

I  wonder  how  it  seems,  looked  at  from  the  cold  moun- 
tains of  Lake  Saranac? 

It's  the  end  of  the  year.  Mrs.  Page  and  I  (alone!) 
have  been  talking  of  democracy,  of  these  very  things 
I've  written.  The  bell-ringing  and  the  dancing  and 
the  feasting  are  not,  on  this  particular  year,  to  our  liking. 


124       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

We  see  all  our  children  gone — half  of  them  to  nests  of 
their  own  building,  the  rest  on  errands  of  their  own 
pleasure,  and  we  are  left,  young  yet,  but  the  main  job 
of  life  behind  us!  We're  going  down  to  a  cottage  in 
southern  North  Carolina  (with  our  own  cook  and  motor 
car,  praise  God!)  for  February,  still  further  to  think 
this  thing  out  and  incidentally  to  build  us  a  library,  in 
which  we'll  live  when  we  can.  That,  for  convention's 
sake,  we  call  a  Vacation. 

Your  brave  note  came  to-day.  Of  course,  you'll 
"get"  'em — those  small  enemies.  The  gain  of  twelve 
pounds  tells  the  story.  The  danger  is,  your  season  of 
philosophy  and  reverie  will  be  too  soon  ended.  Don't 
fret ;  the  work  and  the  friends  will  be  here  when  you  come 
down.  There's  many  a  long  day  ahead;  and  there  may 
not  be  so  many  seasons  of  rest  and  meditation.  You  are 
the  only  man  I  know  who  has  time  enough  to  think  out  a 
clear  answer  to  this:  "What  ought  to  be  done  with 
Bryan?"  What  can  be  done  with  Bryan?  When  you 
find  the  answer,  telegraph  it  to  me. 

I've  a  book  or  two  more  to  send  you.  If  they  interest 
you,  praise  the  gods.  If  they  bore  you,  fling  'em  in  the 
snow  and  think  no  worse  of  me.  You  can't  tell  what  a 
given  book  may  be  worth  to  a  given  man  in  an  unknown 
mood.  They've  become  such  a  commodity  to  me  that 
I  thank  my  stars  for  a  month  away  from  them  when  I 
may  come  at  'em  at  a  different  angle  and  really  need  a 
few  old  ones — Wordsworth,  for  instance.  When  you  get 
old  enough,  you'll  wake  up  some  day  with  the  feeling 
that  the  world  is  much  more  beautiful  than  it  was  when 
you  were  young,  that  a  landscape  has  a  closer  meaning, 
that  the  sky  is  more  companionable,  that  outdoor  colour 
and  motion  are  more  splendidly  audacious  and  beauti- 
fully rhythmical  than  you  had  ever  thought.  That's 


THE   WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  125 

true.  The  gently  snow-clad  little  pines  out  my  window 
are  more  to  me  than  the  whole  Taft  Administration. 
They'll  soon  be  better  than  the  year's  dividends.  And 
the  few  great  craftsmen  in  words  who  can  confirm  this 
feeling — they  are  the  masters  you  become  grateful  for. 
Then  the  sordidness  of  the  world  lies  far  beneath  you 
and  your  great  democracy  is  truly  come — the  democracy 
of  Nature.  To  be  akin  to  a  tree,  in  this  sense,  is  as  good 
as  to  be  akin  to  a  man.  I  have  a  grove  of  little  long-leaf 
pines  down  in  the  old  country  and  I  know  they'll  have 
some  consciousness  of  me  after  all  men  have  forgotten 
me:  I've  saved  'em,  and  they'll  sing  a  century  of  grati- 
tude if  I  can  keep  'em  saved.  Joe  Holmes  gave  me  a  dis- 
sertation on  them  the  other  day.  He  was  down  there 
"on  a  little  Sunday  jaunt"  of  forty  miles — the  best  legs 
and  the  best  brain  that  ever  worked  together  in  one 
anatomy. 

A  conquering  New  Year — that's  what  you'll  find,  be- 
gun before  this  reaches  you,  carrying  all  good  wishes  from 

Yours    affectionately, 
W.  H.  P. 

To  Edwin  A.  Alderman 

Garden  City,  New  York, 

January  26,  1913. 
MY  DEAR  ED  ALDERMAN: 

This  has  been  "Board"1  week,  as  you  know.  The 
men  came  from  all  quarters  of  the  land,  and  we  had  a 
good  time.  New  work  is  opening;  old  work  is  going  well; 
the  fellowship  ran  in  good  tide — except  that  everybody 
asked  everybody  else:  "What  do  you  know  about 
Alderman?"  Everybody  who  had  late  news  of  you  gave 

JThe  reference  is  to  the  meeting  of  the  Southern  and  the  General  Education 
Boards. 


126       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

a  good  report.  The  Southern  Board  formally  passed  a 
resolution  to  send  affectionate  greetings  to  you  and 
high  hope  and  expectation,  and  I  was  commissioned  to 
frame  the  message.  This  is  it.  I  shall  write  no  formal 
resolution,  for  that  wasn't  the  spirit  of  it.  The  fellows 
all  asked  me,  singly  and  collectively,  to  send  their  love. 
And  we  don't  put  that  sort  of  a  message  under  whereases 
and  wherefores.  There  they  were,  every  one  of  them,  ex- 
cept Peabody  and  Bowie.  Mr.  Ogden  in  particular  was 
anxious  for  his  emphatic  remembrance  and  good  wishes 
to  go.  The  dear  old  man  is  fast  passing  into  the  last 
stage  of  his  illness  and  he  knows  it  and  he  soon  expects 
the  end,  in  a  mood  as  brave  and  as  game  as  he  ever  was. 
I  am  sorry  to  tell  you  he  suffers  a  good  deal  of  pain. 

What  a  fine  thing  to  look  back  over — this  Southern 
Board's  work !  Here  was  a  fine,  zealous  merchant  twenty 
years  ago,  then  fifty-seven  years  old,  who  saw  this  big 
job  as  a  modest  layman.  If  he  had  known  more  about 
"  Education"  or  more  about  "the  South,  by  gawd,  sir!" 
he'd  never  have  had  the  courage  to  tackle  the  job.  But  with 
the  bravery  of  ignorance,  he  turned  out  to  be  the  wisest 
man  on  that  task  in  our  generation.  He  has  united  every 
real,  good  force,  and  he  showed  what  can  be  done  in  a 
democracy  even  by  one  zealous  man.  I've  sometimes 
thought  that  this  is  possibly  the  wisest  single  piece  of 
work  that  I  have  ever  seen  done — wisest,  not  smartest. 
I  don't  know  what  can  be  done  when  he's  gone.  His 
phase  of  it  is  really  done.  But,  if  another  real  leader 
arise,  there  will  doubtless  be  another  phase. 

The  General  Board  doesn't  find  much  more  college- 
endowing  to  do.  We  made  only  one  or  two  gifts.  But 
we  are  trying  to  get  the  country  school  task  rightly  fo- 
cussed.  We  haven't  done  it  yet;  but  we  will.  Buttrick 
and  Rose  will  work  it  out.  I  wish  to  God  I  could  throw 


THE    WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  127 

down  my  practical  job  and  go  at  it  with  'em.  Darned  if 
I  couldn't  get  it  going!  though  /  say  it,  as  shouldn't. 
And  we  are  going  pretty  soon  to  begin  with  the  medical 
colleges;  that,  I  think,  is  good — very. 

But  the  most  efficient  workmanlike  piece  of  organiza- 
tion that  my  mortal  eyes  have  ever  seen  is  Rose 's  hook- 
worm work.  We're  going  soon  to  organize  country  life 
in  a  sanitary  way,  the  county  health  officer  being  the 
biggest  man  on  the  horizon.  Stiles  has  moved  his  marine 
hospital  and  his  staff  to  Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  and 
he  and  the  local  health  men  are  quietly  going  to  make  New 
Hanover  the  model  county  for  sanitary  condition  and 
efficiency.  You'll  know  what  a  vast  revolution  that  de- 
notes!— And  Congress  seems  likely  to  charter  the  big 
Rockefeller  Foundation,  which  will  at  once  make  five 
millions  available  for  chasing  the  hookworm  off  the  face  of 
the  earth.  Rose  will  spread  himself  over  Honduras,  etc., 
etc.,  and  China,  and  India!  This  does  literally  beat  the 
devil;  for,  if  the  hookworm  isn't  the  devil,  what  is? 

I  'm  going  to  farming.  I  've  two  brothers  and  two  sons, 
all  young  and  strong,  who  believe  in  the  game.  We  have 
land  without  end,  thousands  of  acres;  engines  to  pull 
stumps,  to  plough,  to  plant,  to  reap.  The  nigger  go  hang! 
A  white  boy  with  an  engine  can  outdo  a  dozen  of  'em. 
Cotton  and  corn  for  staple  crops;  peaches,  figs,  scupper- 
nongs,  vegetables,  melons  for  incidental  crops;  God's 
good  air  in  North  Carolina;  good  roads,  too — why,  man, 
Moore  County  has  authorized  the  laying  out  of  a  strip 
of  land  along  all  highways  to  be  planted  in  shrubbery 
and  fruit  trees  and  kept  as  a  park,  so  that  you  will  motor 
for  100  miles  through  odorous  bloom  in  spring! — I  mean 
I  am  going  down  there  to-morrow  for  a  month,  one  day  for 
golf  at  Pinehurst,  the  next  day  for  clearing  land  with  an 
oil  locomotive,  ripping  up  stumps!  Every  day  for  life 


128       THE   LIFE    AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

out-of-doors  and  every  night,  too.  I'm  going  to  grow 
dasheens.  You  know  what  a  dasheen  is?  It's  a  Trini- 
dad potato,  which  keeps  and  tastes  like  a  sweet  potato 
stuffed  with  chestnuts.  There  are  lots  of  things  to  learn 
in  this  world. 

God  bless  us  all,  old  man.  It's  a  pretty  good  world, 
whether  seen  from  the  petty  excitements  of  reforming  the 
world  and  dreaming  of  a  diseaseless  earth  in  New  York, 
or  from  the  stump-pulling  recreation  of  a  North  Carolina 
wilderness. 

Health  be  with  you! 

W.  H.  P. 

To  Edwin  A.  Alderman 

Garden  City,  L.  I. 

March  10, 1913. 
MY  DEAR  ED  ALDERMAN: 

I  'm  home  from  a  month  of  perfect  climate  in  the  sand- 
hills of  North  Carolina,  where  I  am  preparing  a  farm  and 
building  a  home  at  least  for  winter  use;  and  I  had  the 
most  instructive  and  interesting  month  of  my  life  there. 
I  believe  I  see,  even  in  my  life-time,  the  coming  of  a  kind 
of  man  and  a  kind  of  life  that  shall  come  pretty  near  to 
being  the  model  American  citizen  and  the  model  American 
way  to  live.  Half  of  it  is  climate ;  a  fourth  of  it  occupa- 
tion; the  other  fourth,  companionship.  And  the  climate 
(with  what  it  does)  is  three  fourths  companionship. 

Then  I  came  to  Washington  and  saw  Wilson  made  Pres- 
ident— a  very  impressive  experience  indeed.  The  future 
—God  knows;  but  I  believe  in  Wilson  very  thoroughly. 
Men  fool  him  yet.  Men  fool  us  all.  He  has  already 
made  some  mistakes.  But  he 's  sound.  And,  if  we  have 
moral  courage  enough  to  beat  back  the  grafters,  little  and 
big — I  mean  if  we,  the  people,  will  vote  two  years  and 


THE   WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  129 

four  years  hence,  to  keep  them  back,  I  think  that  we  shall 
now  really  work  toward  a  democratic  government.  I 
have  a  stronger  confidence  in  government  now  as  an  in- 
strument of  human  progress  than  I  have  ever  had  before. 
And  I  find  it  an  exhilarating  and  exciting  experience. 

I  have  seen  many  of  your  good  friends  in  North  Caro- 
lina, Virginia,  and  Washington.  How  we  all  do  love  you, 
old  man!  Don't  forget  that,  in  your  successful  fight. 
And,  with  my  affectionate  greetings  to  Mrs.  Alderman,  ask 
her  to  send  me  the  news  of  your  progress. 

Always  affectionately  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

To  Edwin  A.  Alderman 

On  the  Baltic,  New  York  to  Liverpool, 

May  19, 1913. 
MY  DEAR  ED  ALDERMAN: 

It  was  the  best  kind  of  news  I  heard  of  you  during  my 
last  weeks  at  home — every  day  of  which  I  wished  to  go  to 
Briarcliff  to  see  you.  At  a  distance,  it  seems  absurd  to 
say  that  it  was  impossible  to  go.  But  it  was.  I  set  down 
five  different  days  in  my  calendar  for  this  use;  and  some- 
how every  one  of  them  was  taken.  Two  were  taken  by 
unexpected  calls  to  Washington.  Another  was  taken  by 
my  partners  who  arranged  a  little  good-bye  dinner.  An- 
other was  taken  by  the  British  Ambassador — and  so  on. 
Absurd — of  course  it  was  absurd,  and  I  feel  now  as  if  it 
approached  the  criminal.  But  every  stolen  day  I  said, 
"Well,  I'll  find  another."  But  another  never  came. 

But  good  news  of  you  came  by  many  hands  and  mouths. 
My  congratulations,  my  cheers,  my  love,  old  man.  Now 
when  you  do  take  up  work  again,  don't  take  up  all  the 
work.  Show  the  fine  virtue  called  self-restraint.  We 
work  too  much  and  too  hard  and  do  too  many  things  even 


130       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

when  we  are  well.  There  are  three  titled  Englishmen  who 
sit  at  the  table  with  me  on  this  ship — one  a  former  Lord 
Mayor  of  London,  another  a  peer,  and  the  third  an  M.  P. 
Damn  their  self-sufficiencies!  They  do  excite  my  envy. 
They  don't  shoulder  the  work  of  the  world :  they  shoulder 
the  world  and  leave  the  work  to  be  done  by  somebody  else. 
Three  days'  stories  and  political  discussion  with  them  have 
made  me  wonder  why  the  devil  I've  been  so  industrious 
all  my  life.  They  know  more  than  I  know;  they  are 
richer  than  I  am;  they  have  been  about  the  world  more 
than  I  have;  they  are  far  more  influential  than  I  am;  and 
yet  one  of  them  asked  me  to-day  if  George  Washington 
was  a  born  American!  I  said  to  him,  "Where  the  devil 
do  you  suppose  he  came  from — Hades?  "  And  he  laughed 
at  himself  as  heartily  as  the  rest  of  us  laughed  at  him, 
and  didn't  care  a  hang! 

If  that 's  British,  I  Ve  a  mind  to  become  British ;  and, 
the  point  is,  you  must,  too.  Work  is  a  curse.  There  was 
some  truth  in  that  old  doctrine.  At  any  rate  a  little  of  it 
must  henceforth  go  a  long  way  with  you. 

A  sermon?  Yes.  But,  since  it's  a  good  one,  I  know 
you'll  forgive  me ;  for  it  is  preached  in  love,  my  dear  boy, 
and  accompanied  with  the  hearty  and  insistent  hope  that 
you'll  write  to  me. 

Affectionately, 

WALTER  PAGE. 

This  last  letter  apparently  anticipates  the  story.  A 
few  weeks  before  it  was  written  President  Wilson  had 
succeeded  in  carrying  out  his  determination  to  make  Page 
an  important  part  of  his  Administration.  One  morning 
Page's  telephone  rang  and  Colonel  House's  well-known 
and  well-modulated  voice  came  over  the  wire. 

"Good  morning,  Your  Excellency,"  was  his  greeting. 


THE   WILSONIAN   ERA   BEGINS  131 

"What  the  devil  are  you  talking  about P"  asked  Page. 

Then  Colonel  House  explained  himself.  The  night 
before,  he  said,  he  had  dined  at  the  White  House.  In  a 
pause  of  the  conversation  the  President  had  quietly  re- 
marked : 

"I've  about  made  up  my  mind  to  send  Walter  Page 
to  England.  What  do  you  think  of  that?" 

Colonel  House  thought  very  well  of  it  indeed  and  the 
result  of  his  conversation  was  this  telephone  call,  in  which 
he  was  authorized  to  offer  Page  the  Ambassadorship  to 
Great  Britain. 


CHAPTER  V 

ENGLAND    BEFORE    THE    WAR 

r|THE  London  Embassy  is  the  greatest  diplomatic  gift 
-L  at  the  disposal  of  the  President,  and,  in  the  minds  of 
the  American  people,  it  possesses  a  glamour  and  an  his- 
toric importance  all  its  own.  Page  came  to  the  position, 
as  his  predecessors  had  come,  with  a  sense  of  awe ;  the  great 
traditions  of  the  office ;  the  long  line  of  distinguished  men, 
from  Thomas  Pinckney  to  Whitelaw  Reid,  who  had  filled 
it;  the  peculiar  delicacy  of  the  problems  that  then  existed 
between  the  two  countries;  the  reverent  respect  which 
Page  had  always  entertained  for  English  history,  English 
literature,  and  English  public  men — all  these  considera- 
tions naturally  quickened  the  new  ambassador's  im- 
agination and,  at  the  same  time,  made  his  arrival  in  Eng- 
land a  rather  solemn  event.  Yet  his  first  days  in  London 
had  their  grotesque  side  as  well.  He  himself  has  recorded 
his  impressions,  and,  since  they  contain  an  important 
lesson  for  the  citizens  of  the  world's  richest  and  most 
powerful  Republic,  they  should  be  preserved.  When  the 
ambassador  of  practically  any  other  country  reaches 
London,  he  finds  waiting  for  him  a  spacious  and  beautiful 
embassy,  filled  with  a  large  corps  of  secretaries  and  ser- 
vants— everything  ready,  to  the  minutest  detail,  for  the 
beginning  of  his  labours.  He  simply  enters  these  elabo- 
rate state-owned  and  state-supported  quarters  and  starts 
work.  How  differently  the  mighty  United  States  wel- 
comes its  ambassadors  let  Page's  memorandum  tell: 

132 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  133 

The  boat  touched  at  Queenstown,  and  a  mass  of  Irish 
reporters  came  aboard  and  wished  to  know  what  I  thought 
of  Ireland.  Some  of  them  printed  the  important  announce- 
ment that  I  was  quite  friendly  to  Ireland !  At  Liverpool 
was  Mr.  Laughlin,1  Charge  d'  Affaires  in  London  since  Mr. 
Reid 's  death,  to  meet  me,  and  of  course  the  consul,  Mr. 
Washington.  .  .  .  On  our  arrival  in  London,  Laughlin 
explained  that  he  had  taken  quarters  for  me  at  the  Co- 
burg  Hotel,  whither  we  drove,  after  having  fought  my  way 
through  a  mob  of  reporters  at  the  station.  One  fellow  told 
me  that  since  I  left  New  York  the  papers  had  published  a 
declaration  by  me  that  I  meant  to  be  very  "democratic" 
and  would  under  no  conditions  wear  "knee  breeches" ;  and 
he  asked  me  about  that  report.  I  was  foolish  enough  to 
reply  that  the  existence  of  an  ass  in  the  United  States  ought 
not  necessarily  to  require  the  existence  of  a  corresponding 
ass  in  London.  He  printed  that !  I  never  knew  the  origin 
of  this  "knee  breeches"  story. 

That  residence  at  the  Coburg  Hotel  for  three  months 
was  a  crowded  and  uncomfortable  nightmare.  The 
indignity  and  inconvenience — even  the  humiliation — of  an 
ambassador  beginning  his  career  in  an  hotel,  especially 
during  the  Court  season,  and  a  green  ambassador  at 
that!  I  hope  I  may  not  die  before  our  Government 
does  the  conventional  duty  to  provide  ambassadors '  resi- 
dences. 

The  next  morning  I  went  to  the  Chancery  (123,  Vic- 
toria Street)  and  my  heart  sank.  I  had  never  in  my  life 
been  in  an  American  Embassy.  I  had  had  no  business 
with  them  in  Paris  or  in  London  on  my  previous  visits. 
In  fact  I  had  never  been  in  any  embassy  except  the 
British  Embassy  at  Washington.  But  the  moment  I 


JMr.  Irwin  Laughlin,  first  secretary  of  the  American  Embassy  in  London. 


134       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

entered  that  dark  and  dingy  hall  at  123,  Victoria  Street, 
between  two  cheap  stores — the  same  entrance  that  the 
dwellers  in  the  cheap  flats  above  used — I  knew  that  Uncle 
Sam  had  no  fit  dwelling  there.  And  the  Ambassador's 
room  greatly  depressed  me — dingy  with  twenty-nine  years 
of  dirt  and  darkness,  and  utterly  undignified.  And  the 
rooms  for  the  secretaries  and  attaches  were  the  little  bed- 
rooms, kitchen,  etc.,  of  that  cheap  flat;  that's  all  it  was. 
For  the  place  we  paid  $1,500  a  year.  I  did  not  understand 
then  and  I  do  not  understand  yet  how  Lowell,  Bayard, 
Phelps,  Hay,  Choate,  and  Reid  endured  that  cheap  hole. 
Of  course  they  stayed  there  only  about  an  hour  a  day; 
but  they  sometimes  saw  important  people  there.  And, 
whether  they  ever  saw  anybody  there  or  not,  the  offices  of 
the  United  States  Government  in  London  ought  at  least  to 
be  as  good  as  a  common  lawyer's  office  in  a  country  towTn 
in  a  rural  state  of  our  Union.  Nobody  asked  for  anything 
for  an  embassy :  nobody  got  anything  for  an  embassy.  I 
made  up  my  mind  in  ten  minutes  that  I  'd  get  out  of  this 
place.1 

At  the  Coburg  Hotel,  we  were  very  well  situated;  but 
the  hotel  became  intolerably  tiresome.  Harold  Fowler 
and  Frank  and  I  were  there  until  W.  A.  W.  P.2  and  Kitty3 
came  (and  Frances  Clark  came  with  them) .  Then  we  were 
just  a  little  too  big  a  hotel  party.  Every  morning  I  drove 
down  to  the  old  hole  of  a  Chancery  and  remained  about 
two  hours.  There  wasn't  very  much  work  to  do;  and 
my  main  business  was  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
work  and  with  people — to  find  myself  with  reference  to 

JIn  about  a  year  Page  moved  the  Chancery  to  the  present  satisfactory  quar- 
ters at  No.  4  Grosvenor  Gardens. 

2Mrs.  Walter  H.  Page. 

8Miss  Katharine  A.  Page,  the  Ambassador's  daughter. 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  135 

this  task,  with  reference  to  official  life  and  to  London  life 
in  general. 

Every  afternoon  people  came  to  the  hotel  to  see  me — 
some  to  pay  their  respects  and  to  make  life  pleasant,  some 
out  of  mere  curiosity,  and  many  for  ends  of  their  own.  I 
confess  that  on  many  days  nightfall  found  me  completely 
worn  out.  But  the  evenings  seldom  brought  a  chance  to 
rest.  The  social  season  was  going  at  its  full  gait;  and  the 
new  ambassador  (any  new  ambassador)  would  have  been 
invited  to  many  functions.  A  very  few  days  after  my  ar- 
rival, the  Duchess  of  X  invited  Frank  and  me  to  dinner. 
The  powdered  footmen  were  the  chief  novelty  of  the  occa- 
sion for  us.  But  I  was  much  confused  because  nobody 
introduced  anybody  to  anybody  else.  If  a  juxtaposition, 
as  at  the  dinner  table,  made  an  introduction  imperative, 
the  name  of  the  lady  next  you  was  so  slurred  that  you 
couldn't  possibly  understand  it. 

Party  succeeded  party.  I  went  to  them  because  they 
gave  me  a  chance  to  become  acquainted  with  people. 

But  very  early  after  my  arrival,  I  was  of  course  sum- 
moned by  the  King.  I  had  presented  a  copy  of  my  cre- 
dentials to  the  Foreign  Secretary  (Sir  Edward  Grey)  and 
the  real  credentials — the  original  in  a  sealed  envelope — 
I  must  present  to  His  Majesty.  One  morning  the  King's 
Master  of  the  Ceremonies,  Sir  Arthur  Walsh,  came  to 
the  hotel  with  the  royal  coaches,  four  or  five  of  them,  and 
the  richly  caparisoned  grooms.  The  whole  staff  of  the 
Embassy  must  go  with  me.  We  drove  to  Buckingham 
Palace,  and,  after  waiting  a  few  moments,  I  was  ushered 
into  the  King's  presence.  He  stood  in  one  of  the  draw- 
ing rooms  on  the  ground  floor  looking  out  on  the  garden. 
There  stood  with  him  in  uniform  Sir  Edward  Grey.  I 
entered  and  bowed.  He  shook  my  hand,  and  I  spoke  my 
little  piece  of  three  or  four  sentences. 


136       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

He  replied,  welcoming  me  and  immediately  proceeded  to 
express  his  surprise  and  regret  that  a  great  and  rich  coun- 
try like  the  United  States  had  not  provided  a  residence  for 
its  ambassadors.  "It  is  not  fair  to  an  ambassador," 
said  he ;  and  he  spoke  most  earnestly. 

I  reminded  him  that,  although  the  lack  of  a  home  was  an 
inconvenience,  the  trouble  or  discomfort  that  fell  on  an 
ambassador  was  not  so  bad  as  the  wrong  impression 
which  I  feared  was  produced  about  the  United  States 
and  its  Government,  and  I  explained  that  we  had  had 
so  many  absorbing  domestic  tasks  and,  in  general,  so 
few  absorbing  foreign  relations,  that  we  had  only  begun 
to  develop  what  might  be  called  an  international  con- 
sciousness. 

Sir  Edward  was  kind  enough  the  next  time  I  saw  him  to 
remark  that  I  did  that  very  well  and  made  a  good  im- 
pression on  the  King. 

I  could  now  begin  my  ambassadorial  career  proper — 
call  on  the  other  ambassadors  and  accept  invitations  to 
dinners  and  the  like. 

I  was  told  after  I  came  from  the  King's  presence  that 
the  Queen  would  receive  me  in  a  few  minutes.  I  was 
shown  upstairs,  the  door  opened,  and  there  in  a  small 
drawing  room,  stood  the  Queen  alone — a  pleasant  woman, 
very  royal  in  appearance.  The  one  thing  that  sticks  in 
my  memory  out  of  this  first  conversation  with  her  Maj- 
esty was  her  remark  that  she  had  seen  only  one  man  who 
had  been  President  of  the  United  States — Mr.  Roosevelt. 
She  hoped  he  was  well.  I  felt  moved  to  remark  that 
she  was  not  likely  to  see  many  former  Presidents  because 
the  office  was  so  hard  a  task  that  most  of  them  did  not 
long  survive. 

"I'm  hoping  that  office  will  not  soon  kill  the  King," 
she  said. 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  137 

In  time  Page  obtained  an  entirely  adequate  and  digni- 
fied house  at  6  Grosvenor  Square,  and  soon  found  that  the 
American  Ambassadorship  had  compensations  which  were 
hardly  suggested  by  his  first  glimpse  of  the  lugubrious 
Chancery.  He  brought  to  this  new  existence  his  plastic 
and  inquisitive  mind,  and  his  mighty  gusto  for  the  in- 
teresting and  the  unusual;  he  immensely  enjoyed  his  meet- 
ings with  the  most  important  representatives  of  all  types 
of  British  life.  The  period  of  his  arrival  marked  a  cri- 
sis in  British  history ;  Mr.  Lloyd  George  was  supposed  to  be 
taxing  the  aristocracy  out  of  existence;  Mr.  Asquith  was 
accused  of  plotting  the  destruction  of  the  House  of  Lords; 
the  tide  of  liberalism,  even  of  radicalism,  was  running 
high,  and,  in  the  judgment  of  the  conservative  forces, 
England  was  tottering  to  its  fall;  the  gathering  mob  was 
about  to  submerge  everything  that  had  made  it  great. 
And  the  Irish  question  had  reached  another  crisis  with 
the  passage  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  which  Sir  Edward 
Carson  was  preparing  to  resist  with  his  Irish  "volun- 
teers." 

All  these  matters  formed  the  staple  of  talk  at  dinner 
tables,  at  country  houses  and  at  the  clubs ;  and  Page  found 
constant  entertainment  in  the  variegated  pageant.  There 
were  important  American  matters  to  discuss  with  the 
Foreign  Office — more  important  than  any  that  had  arisen 
in  recent  years — particularly  Mexico  and  the  Panama 
Tolls.  Before  these  questions  are  considered,  however, 
it  may  be  profitable  to  print  a  selection  from  the  many 
letters  which  Page  wrote  during  his  first  year,  giving  his 
impressions  of  this  England  which  he  had  always  loved 
and  which  a  closer  view  made  him  love  and  admire  still 
more.  These  letters  have  the  advantage  of  presenting  a 
frank  and  yet  sympathetic  picture  of  British  society  and 
British  life  as  it  was  just  before  the  war. 


138       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

To  Frank  N.  Doubleday 

The  Coburg  Hotel, 
Carlos  Place,  Grosvenor  Square, 

London,  W. 
DEAR  EFFENDI:* 

You  can't  imagine  the  intensity  of  the  party  feeling 
here.  I  dined  to-night  in  an  old  Tory  family.  They  had 
just  had  a  "division"  an  hour  or  two  before  in  the  House 
of  Lords  on  the  Home  Rule  Bill.  Six  Lords  were  at  the 
dinner  and  their  wives.  One  was  a  Duke,  two  were 
Bishops,  and  the  other  three  were  Earls.  They  expect  a 
general  "bust-up."  If  the  King  does  so  and  so,  off  with 
the  King!  That's  what  they  fear  the  Liberals  will  do. 
It  sounds  very  silly  to  me;  but  you  can't  exaggerate  their 
fear.  The  Great  Lady,  who  was  our  hostess,  told  me, 
with  tears  in  her  voice,  that  she  had  suspended  all  social 
relations  with  the  Liberal  leaders. 

At  lunch — just  five  or  six  hours  before — we  were  at 
the  Prime  Minister's,  where  the  talk  was  precisely  on  the 
other  side.  Gladstone's  granddaughter  was  there  and 
several  members  of  the  Cabinet. 

Somehow  it  reminds  me  of  the  tense  days  of  the  slavery 
controversy  just  before  the  Civil  War. 

Yet  in  the  everyday  life  of  the  people,  you  hear  nothing 
about  it.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the  ordinary 
man  cares  a  fig! 

Good-night.  You  don't  care  a  fig  for  this.  But  I'll 
get  time  to  write  you  something  interesting  in  a  little 
while. 

Yours, 

W.  H.  P. 

luEffendi"  is  the  name  by  which  Mr.  F.  N.  Doubleday,  Page's  partner,  is 
known  to  his  intimates.  It  is  obviously  suggested  by  the  initials  of  his  name. 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  139 

To  Herbert  S.  Houston 

American  Embassy 

London 
Sunday,  24  Aug.,  1913. 

DEARH.  S.  H.: 

.  .  .  You  know  there's  been  much  discussion  of  the 
decadence  of  the  English  people.  I  don't  believe  a  word 
of  it.  They  have  an  awful  slum,  I  hear,  as  everybody 
knows,  and  they  have  an  idle  class.  Worse,  from  an 
equal-opportunity  point-of-view,  they  have  a  very  large 
servant-class,  and  a  large  class  that  depends  on  the  no- 
bility and  the  rich.  All  these  are  economic  and  social 
drawbacks.  But  they  have  always  had  all  these — ex- 
cept that  the  slum  has  become  larger  in  modern  years. 
And  I  don't  see  or  find  any  reason  to  believe  in  the  theory 
of  decadence.  The  world  never  saw  a  finer  lot  of  men 
than  the  best  of  their  ruling  class.  You  may  search  the 
world  and  you  may  search  history  for  finer  men  than 
Lord  Morley,  Sir  Edward  Grey,  Mr.  Harcourt,  and  other 
members  of  the  present  Cabinet.  And  I  meet  such 
men  everywhere — gently  bred,  high-minded,  physically 
fit,  intellectually  cultivated,  patriotic.  If  the  devotion 
to  old  forms  and  the  inertia  which  makes  any  change  al- 
most impossible  strike  an  American  as  out-of-date,  you 
must  remember  that  in  the  grand  old  times  of  England, 
they  had  all  these  things  and  had  them  worse  than  they 
are  now.  I  can't  see  that  the  race  is  breaking  down  or 
giving  out.  Consider  how  their  political  morals  have 
been  pulled  up  since  the  days  of  the  rotten  boroughs; 
consider  how  their  court-life  is  now  high  and  decent,  and 
think  what  it  once  was.  British  trade  is  larger  this  year 
than  it  ever  was,  Englishmen  are  richer  then  they  ever 
were  and  more  of  them  are  rich.  They  write  and  speak 


140       THE   LIFE    AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

and  play  cricket,  and  govern,  and  fight  as  well  as  they 
have  ever  done — excepting,  of  course,  the  writing  of 
Shakespeare. 

Another  conclusion  that  is  confirmed  the  more  you 
see  of  English  life  is  their  high  art  of  living.  When  they 
make  their  money,  they  stop  money-making  and  culti- 
yvate  their  minds  and  their  gardens  and  entertain  their 
friends  and  do  all  the  high  arts  of  living — to  perfection. 
Three  days  ago  a  retired  soldier  gave  a  garden-party  in 
my  honour,  twenty-five  miles  out  of  London.  There 
was  his  historic  house,  a  part  of  it  500  years  old ;  there  were 
his  ten  acres  of  garden,  his  lawn,  his  trees ;  and  they  walk 
with  you  over  it  all;  they  sit  out-of-doors;  they  serve  tea; 
they  take  life  rationally;  they  talk  pleasantly  (not  jocu- 
larly, nor  story-telling) ;  they  abhor  the  smart  in  talk  or 
[in  conduct;  they  have  gentleness,  cultivation,  the  best 
manners  in  the  world ;  and  they  are  genuine.  The  hostess 
has  me  take  a  basket  and  go  with  her  while  she  cuts  it  full 
of  flowers  for  us  to  bring  home ;  and,  as  we  walk,  she  tells 
the  story  of  the  place.  She  is  a  tenant-for-life;  it  is 
entailed.  Her  husband  was  wounded  in  South  Africa. 
Her  heir  is  her  nephew.  The  home,  of  course,  will  re- 
main in  the  family  forever.  No,  they  don't  go  to  London 
much  in  recent  years :  why  should  they?  But  they  travel 
a  month  or  more.  They  give  three  big  tea-parties — one 
when  the  rhododendrons  bloom  and  the  others  at  stated 
times.  They  have  friends  to  stay  with  them  half  the 
time,  perhaps — sometimes  parties  of  a  dozen.  England 
never  had  a  finer  lot  of  folk  than  these.  And  you  see 
them  everywhere.  The  art  of  living  sanely  they  have 
developed  to  as  high  a  level,  I  think,  as  you  will  find  at 
any  time  in  any  land. 

The  present  political  battle  is  fiercer  than  you  would 
ever  guess.  The  Lords  feel  that  they  are  sure  to  be 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  141 

robbed:  they  see  the  end  of  the  ordered  world.  Chaos 
and  confiscation  he  before  them.  Yet  that,  too,  has 
nearly  always  been  so.  It  was  so  in  the  Reform  Bill  days. 
Lord  Morley  said  to  me  the  other  day  that  when  all  the 
abolitions  had  been  done,  there  would  be  fewer  things 
abolished  than  anybody  hopes  or  fears,  and  that  there 
would  be  the  same  problems  in  some  form  for  many 
generations.  I'm  beginning  to  believe  that  the  English- 
man has  always  been  afraid  of  the  future — that's  what's 
keeps  him  so  alert.  They  say  to  me:  "You  have  frightful 
things  happen  in  the  United  States — your  Governor  of 
New  York,1  your  Thaw  case,  your  corruption,  etc.,  etc.; 
and  yet  you  seem  sure  and  tell  us  that  your  countrymen 
feel  sure  of  the  safety  of  your  government."  In  the 
newspaper  comments  on  my  Southampton2  speech  the 
other  day,  this  same  feeling  cropped  up;  the  American 
Ambassador  assures  us  that  the  note  of  hope  is  the  domi- 
nant note  of  the  Republic — etc.,  etc.  Yes,  they  are 
dull,  in  a  way — not  dull,  so  much  as  steady;  and  yet 
they  have  more  solid  sense  than  any  other  people. 

It's  an  interesting  study — the  most  interesting  in  the 
world.  The  genuineness  of  the  courtesy,  the  real  kind- 
ness and  the  hospitality  of  the  English  are  beyond  praise 
and  without  limit.  In  this  they  show  a  strange  contra- 
diction to  their  dickering  habits  in  trade  and  their  "unc- 
tuous rectitude"  in  stealing  continents.  I  know  a  place 
in  the  world  now  where  they  are  steadily  moving  their 
boundary  line  into  other  people's  territory.  I  guess  they 
really  believe  that  the  earth  belongs  to  them. 

Sincerely, 

W.  H.  P. 


*A  reference  to  William  Sulzer,  Governor  of  New  York,  who  at  this  time  was 
undergoing  impeachment. 

2  See  Chapter  VIII,  page  258. 


142       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

To  Arthur  W.  Page1 

Gordon  Arms  Hotel,  Elgin,  Scotland. 

September  6,  1913. 
DEAR  ARTHUR: 

Your  mother  and  Kitty2  and  I  are  on  our  way  to  see 
Andy.3  Had  you  any  idea  that  to  motor  from  London 
to  Skibo  means  driving  more  than  eight  hundred  miles? 
Our  speedometer  now  shows  more  than  seven  hundred 
and  we've  another  day  to  go — at  least  one  hundred  and 
thirty  miles.  And  we  haven't  even  had  a  tire  accident. 
We're  having  a  delightful  journey — only  this  country 
yields  neither  vegetables  nor  fruits,  and  I  have  to  live  on 
oatmeal.  They  spell  it  p-o-r-r-i-d-g-e,  and  they  call  it 
puruge.  But  they  beat  all  creation  as  carnivorous  folk. 
We  stayed  last  night  at  a  beautiful  mountain  hotel  at 
Braemar  (the  same  town  whereat  Stevenson  wrote  "  Treas- 
ure Island")  and  they  had  nine  kinds  of  meat  for  dinner 
and  eggs  in  three  ways,  and  no  vegetables  but  potatoes. 
But  this  morning  we  struck  the  same  thin  oatbread  that 
you  ate  at  Grandfather  Mountain. 

I've  never  understood  the  Scotch.  I  think  they  are, 
without  doubt,  the  most  capable  race  in  the  world— 
away  from  home.  But  how  they  came  to  be  so  and  how 
they  keep  up  their  character  and  supremacy  and  keep 
breeding  true  needs  explanation.  As  you  come  through 
the  country,  you  see  the  most  monotonous  and  dingy 
little  houses  and  thousands  of  robust  children,  all  dirtier 
than  niggers.  In  the  fertile  parts  of  the  country,  the 
fields  are  beautifully  cultivated — for  Lord  This-and- 
T' Other  who  lives  in  London  and  comes  up  here  in  sum- 


iThe  Ambassador's  son. 
2Miss  Katharine  A.  Page. 
*Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie. 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  143 

mer  to  collect  his  rents  and  to  shoot.  The  country  people 
seem  desperately  poor.  But  they  don't  lose  their  ro- 
bustness. In  the  solid  cities — the  solidest  you  ever  saw, 
all  being  of  granite — such  as  Edinburgh  and  Aberdeen, 
where  you  see  the  prosperous  class,  they  look  the  sturdiest 
and  most  independent  fellows  you  ever  saw.  As  they 
grow  old  they  all  look  like  blue-bellied  Presbyterian 
elders.  Scotch  to  the  marrow — everybody  and  every- 
thing seem — bare  knees  alike  on  the  street  and  in  the 
hotel  with  dress  coats  on,  bagpipes — there's  no  sense  in 
these  things,  yet  being  Scotch  they  live  forever.  The 
first  men  I  saw  early  this  morning  on  the  street  in  front 
of  the  hotel  were  two  weather-beaten  old  chaps,  with 
gray  beards  under  their  chins.  "Guddddd  Murrrra- 
inggggg,  Andy,"  said  one.  "Guddddd  murrninggggg, 
Sandy,"  said  the  other;  and  they  trudged  on.  They'd 
dethrone  kings  before  they'd  shave  differently  or  drop 
their  burrs  and  gutturals  or  cover  their  knees  or  cease 
lying  about  the  bagpipe.  And  you  can't  get  it  out  of 
the  blood.  Your  mother1  becomes  provoked  when  I  say 
these  things,  and  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  you  yourself 
resent  them  and  break  out  quoting  Burns.  Now  the 
Highlands  can't  support  a  population  larger  than  the 
mountain  counties  of  Kentucky.  Now  your  Kentucky 
feud  is  a  mere  disgrace  to  civilization.  But  your  High- 
land feud  is  celebrated  in  song  and  story.  Every  clan 
keeps  itself  together  to  this  day  by  its  history  and  by  its 
plaid.  At  a  turn  in  the  road  in  the  mountains  yesterday, 
there  stood  a  statue  of  Bob  Boy  painted  every  stripe  to 
life.  We  saw  his  sword  and  purse  in  Sir  Walter's  house 
at  Abbotsford.  The  King  himself  wore  the  kilt  and  one 
®f  the  plaids  at  the  last  court  ball  at  Buckingham  Palace, 
and  there  is  a  man  who  writes  his  name  and  is  called 

1Mrs.  Walter  H.  Page  is  the  daughter  of  a  Scotchman  from  Ayrshire. 


144       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

"The  Macintosh  of  Macintosh,"  and  that's  a  prouder 
title  than  the  King's.  A  little  handful  of  sheep-stealing 
bandits  got  themselves  immortalized  and  heroized,  and 
they  are  now  all  Presbyterian  elders.  They  got  their 
church  "established"  in  Scotland,  and  when  the  King 
comes  to  Scotland,  by  Jehoshaphat!  he  is  obliged  to 
become  a  Presbyterian.  Yet  your  Kentucky  feudist— 
poor  devil — he  comes  too  late.  The  Scotchman  has  pre- 
empted that  particular  field  of  glory.  And  all  such  com- 
parisons make  your  mother  fighting  mad.  .  .  . 

Affectionately,          W    H    P 

To  the  President 

American  Embassy,  London. 

October  25,  1913. 
DEAR  MR.  PRESIDENT: 

I  am  moved  once  in  a  while  to  write  you  privately,  not 
about  any  specific  piece  of  public  business,  but  only,  if  I 
can,  to  transmit  something  of  the  atmosphere  of  the 
work  here.  And,  since  this  is  meant  quite  as  much  for 
your  amusement  as  for  any  information  it  may  carry, 
don't  read  it  "in  office  hours." 

, —     The  future  of  the  world  belongs  to  us.    A  man  needs 

I    to  live  here,  with  two  economic  eyes  in  his  head,  a  very 

/     little  time  to  become  very  sure  of  this.     Everybody  will 

see    it   presently.     These    English    are    spending    their 

capital,  and  it  is  their  capital  that  continues  to  give  them 

their  vast  power.     Now  what  are  we  going  to  do  with 

the  leadership  of  the  world  presently  when  it  clearly  falls 

into  our  hands?1    And  how  can  we  use  the  English  for  the 

I     highest  uses  of  democracy? 

lfThe  astonishing  thing  about  Page's  comment  on  the  leadership  of  the  limited 
States — if  it  would  only  take  this  leadership — is  that  these  letters  were  written  ia 
1913,  a  year  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  and  eight  years  before  the  Washing- 
ton Disarmament  Conference  of  1921-22. 


ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE   WAR  145 

You  see  their  fear  of  an  on-sweeping  democracy  in 
their  social  treatment  of  party  opponents.  A  Tory  lady 
told  me  with  tears  that  she  could  no  longer  invite  her 
Liberal  friends  to  her  house:  "I  have  lost  them — they 
are  robbing  us,  you  know."  I  made  the  mistake  of  say- 
ing a  word  in  praise  of  Sir  Edward  Grey  to  a  duke.  "Yes, 
yes,  no  doubt  an  able  man ;  but  you  must  understand,  sir, 
that  I  don't  train  with  that  gang."  A  bishop  explained 
to  me  at  elaborate  length  why  the  very  monarchy  is 
doomed  unless  something  befalls  Lloyd  George  and  his 
programme.  Ever^  dinner  party  is  made  up  with 
strict  reference  to  the  party  politics  of  the  guests.  Some- 
times you  imagine  you  see  something  like  civil  war;  and 
money  is  flowing  out  of  the  Kingdom  into  Canada  in  the 
greatest  volume  ever  known  and  I  am  told  that  a  number 
of  old  families  are  investing  their  fortunes  in  African 
lands. 

These  and  such  things  are,  of  course,  mere  chips  which 
show  the  direction  the  slow  stream  runs.  The  great 
economic  tide  of  the  century  flows  our  way.  We  shall 
have  the  big  world  questions  to  decide  presently.  Then 
we  shall  need  world  policies ;  and  it  will  be  these  old-time 
world  leaders  that  we  shall  then  have  to  work  with,  more 
closely  than  now. 

The  English  make  a  sharp  distinction  between  the 
American  people  and  the  American  Government — a  dis- 
tinction that  they  are  conscious  of  and  that  they  them- 
selves talk  about.  They  do  not  think  of  our  people  as 
foreigners.  I  have  a  club  book  on  my  table  wherein  the 
members  are  classified  as  British,  Colonial,  American, 
and  Foreign — quite  unconsciously.  But  they  do  think 
of  our  Government  as  foreign,  and  as  a  frontier  sort  of 
thing  without  good  manners  or  good  faith.  This  dis- 
tinction presents  the  big  task  of  implanting  here  a  real 


146       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

respect  for  our  Government.  People  often  think  to 
compliment  the  American  Ambassador  by  assuming  that 
he  is  better  than  his  Government  and  must  at  times  be 
ashamed  of  it.  Of  course  the  Government  never  does 
this — never — but  persons  in  unofficial  life;  and  I  have 
sometimes  hit  some  hard  blows  under  this  condescending 
provocation.  This  is  the  one  experience  that  I  have 
found  irritating.  They  commiserate  me  on  having  a 
Government  that  will  not  provide  an  Ambassador's  resi- 
dence— from  the  King  to  my  servants.  They  talk  about 
American  lynchings.  Even  the  Spectator,  in  an  early 
editorial  about  you,  said  that  we  should  now  see  what 
stuff  there  is  in  the  new  President  by  watching  whether 
you  would  stop  lynchings.  They  forever  quote  Bryce 
on  the  badness  of  our  municipal  government.  They 
pretend  to  think  that  the  impeachment  of  governors  is 
common  and  ought  to  be  commoner.  One  delicious 
M.  P.  asked  me:  "Now,  since  the  Governor  of  New 
York  is  impeached,  who  becomes  Vice-President?"1 
Ignorance,  unfathomable  ignorance,  is  at  the  bottom  of 
much  of  it;  if  the  Town  Treasurer  of  Yuba  Dam  gets  a 
$100  "rake  off"  on  a  paving  contract,  our  city  govern- 
ment is  a  failure. 

I  am  about  to  conclude  that  our  yellow  press  does  us 
more  harm  abroad  than  at  home,  and  many  of  the  Ameri- 
can correspondents  of  the  English  papers  send  exactly 
the  wrong  news.  The  whole  governing  class  of  England 
has  a  possibly  exaggerated  admiration  for  the  American 
people  and  something  very  like  contempt  for  the  American 
Government. 


*Just  what  this  critical  Briton  had  in  mind,  in  thinking  that  the  removal  of  a 
New  York  governor  created  a  vacancy  in  the  Vice-Presidency,  is  not  clear.  Pos- 
sibly, however,  he  had  a  cloudy  recollection  of  the  fact  that  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
after  serving  as  Governor  of  New  York  State,  became  Vice-President,  and  may 
have  concluded  from  this  that  the  two  offices  were  held  by  the  same  man. 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  147 

If  I  make  it  out  right  two  causes  (in  addition  to  their 
ignorance)  of  their  dislike  of  our  Government  are  (1)  its 
lack  of  manners  in  the  past,  and  (2)  its  indiscretions  of 
publicity  about  foreign  affairs.  We  ostentatiously  stand 
aloof  from  their  polite  ways  and  courteous  manners  in 
many  of  the  every-day,  ordinary,  unimportant  dealings 
with  them — aloof  from  the  common  amenities  of  long- 
organized  political  life.  .  .  . 

Not  one  of  these  things  is  worth  mentioning  or  re- 
membering. But  generations  of  them  have  caused  our 
Government  to  be  regarded  as  thoughtless  of  the  fine 
little  acts  of  life — as  rude.  The  more  I  find  out  about 
diplomatic  customs  and  the  more  I  hear  of  the  little-big 
troubles  of  others,  the  more  need  I  find  to  be  careful 
about  details  of  courtesy. 

Thus  we  are  making  as  brave  a  show  as  becomes  us. 
I  no  longer  dismiss  a  princess  after  supper  or  keep  the 
whole  diplomatic  corps  waiting  while  I  talk  to  an  inter- 
esting man  till  the  Master  of  Ceremonies  comes  up  and 
whispers:  "Your  Excellency,  I  think  they  are  waiting  for 
you  to  move."  But  I  am  both  young  and  green,  and 
even  these  folk  forgive  much  to  green  youth,  if  it  show  a 
willingness  to  learn. 

But  our  Government,  though  green,  isn't  young  enough 
to  plead  its  youth.  It  is  time  that  it,  too,  were  learning 
Old  World  manners  in  dealing  with  Old  World  peoples. 
I  do  not  know  whether  we  need  a  Bureau,  or  a  Major- 
Domo,  or  a  Master  of  Ceremonies  at  Washington,  but  we 
need  somebody  to  prompt  us  to  act  as  polite  as  we  really 
are,  somebody  to  think  of  those  gentler  touches  that  we 
naturally  forget.  Some  other  governments  have  such 
officers — perhaps  all.  The  Japanese,  for  instance,  are 
newcomers  in  world  politics.  But  this  Japanese  Am- 
bassador and  his  wife  here  never  miss  a  trick;  and  they 


148       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

come  across  the  square  and  ask  us  how  to  do  it!  All 
the  other  governments,  too,  play  the  game  of  small 
courtesies  to  perfection — the  French,  of  course,  and  the 
Spanish  and — even  the  old  Turk. 

Another  reason  for  the  English  distrust  of  our  Govern- 
ment is  its  indiscretions  in  the  past  of  this  sort:  one  of 
our  Ministers  to  Germany,  you  will  recall,  was  obliged 
to  resign  because  the  Government  at  Washington  inad- 
vertently published  one  of  his  confidential  despatches; 
Griscom  saved  his  neck  only  by  the  skin,  when  he  was  in 
Japan,  for  a  similar  reason.  These  things  travel  all 
round  the  world  from  one  chancery  to  another  and  all 
governments  know  them.  Yesterday  somebody  in  Wash- 
ington talked  about  my  despatch  summarizing  my  talk 
with  Sir  Edward  Grey  about  Mexico,  and  it  appeared  in 
the  papers  here  this  morning  that  Sir  Edward  had  told 
me  that  the  big  business  interests  were  pushing  him  hard. 
This  I  sent  as  only  my  inference.  I  had  at  once  to  dis- 
claim it.  This  leaves  in  his  mind  a  doubt  about  our  care 
for  secrecy.  They  have  monstrous  big  doors  and  silent 
men  in  Downing  Street;  and,  I  am  told,  a  stenographer 
sits  behind  a  big  screen  in  Sir  Edward's  room  while  an 
Ambassador  talks! x  I  wonder  if  my  comments  on  certain 
poets,  which  I  have  poured  forth  there  to  provoke  his, 
are  preserved  in  the  archives  of  the  British  Empire.  The 
British  Empire  is  surely  very  welcome  to  them.  I  have 
twice  found  it  useful,  by  the  way,  to  bring  up  Wordsworth 

1For  years  this  idea  of  the  stenographer  back  of  a  screen  in  the  Foreign  Office  has 
been  abroad,  but  it  is  entirely  unfounded.  Several  years  ago  a  Foreign  Secretary, 
perhaps  Lord  Salisbury,  put  a  screen  behind  his  desk  to  keep  off  the  draughts  and 
from  this  precaution  the  myth  arose  that  it  shielded  a  stenographer  who  took  a 
complete  record  of  ambassadorial  conversations.  After  an  ambassador  leaves,  the 
Foreign  Secretary,  however,  does  write  out  the  important  points  in  the  conversation. 
Copies  are  made  and  printed,  and  sent  to  the  King,  the  Prime  Minister,  the 
British  Ambassador  in  the  country  to  which  the  interview  relates,  and  occasion- 
ally to  others.  All  these  records  are,  of  course,  carefully  preserved  in  the  archives 
of  the  Foreign  Office. 


ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE   WAR  149 

when  he  has  begun  to  talk  about  Panama  tolls.  Then 
your  friend  Canon  Rawnsley1  has,  without  suspecting  it, 
done  good  service  in  diplomacy. 

The  newspaper  men  here,  by  the  way,  both  English 
and  American,  are  disposed  to  treat  us  fairly  and  to  be 
helpful.  The  London  Times,  on  most  subjects,  is  very 
friendly,  and  1  find  its  editors  worth  cultivating  for  their 
own  sakes  and  because  of  their  position.  It  is  still  the 
greatest  English  newspaper.  Its  general  friendliness  to 
the  United  States,  by  the  way,  has  started  a  rumour  that 
I  hear  once  in  a  while — that  it  is  really  owned  by  Ameri- 
cans— nonsense  yet  awhile.  To  the  fairness  and  help- 
fulness of  the  newspaper  men  there  are  one  or  two  excep- 
tions, for  instance,  a  certain  sneaking  whelp  who  writes  for 
several  papers.  He  went  to  the  Navy  League  dinner 
last  night  at  which  I  made  a  little  speech.  When  I  sat 
down,  he  remarked  to  his  neighbour,  with  a  yawn,  "Well, 
nothing  in  it  for  me.  The  Ambassador,  I  am  afraid,  said 
nothing  for  which  I  can  demand  his  recall."  They,  of 
course,  don't  care  thrippence  about  me;  it's  you  they  hope 
to  annoy. 

Then  after  beating  them  at  their  own  game  of  daily 
little  courtesies,  we  want  a  fight  with  them — a  good  stiff 
fight  about  something  wherein  we  are  dead  right,  to  re- 
mind them  sharply  that  we  have  sand  in  our  craw.2  I 
pray  every  night  for  such  a  fight;  for  they  like  fighting 
men.  Then  they'll  respect  our  Government  as  they  al- 
ready respect  us — if  we  are  dead  right. 

But  I've  little  hope  for  a  fight  of  the  right  kind  with 
Sir  Edward  Grey.  He  is  the  very  reverse  of  insolent — 

lrrhe  Rev.  Hardwicke  Drummond  Rawnsley,  the  well-known  Vicar  of  Crosth- 
waite,  Keswick,  poet  and  student  of  Wordsworth.  President  Wilson,  who  used 
occasionally  to  spend  his  vacation  in  the  Lake  region,  was  one  of  his  friends. 

2It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  say  that  the  Ambassador  was  thinking  only  of  a 
diplomatic  "fight." 


150       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

fair,  frank,  sympathetic,  and  he  has  so  clear  an  under- 
standing of  our  real  character  that  he'd  yield  anything 
that  his  party  and  Parliament  would  permit.  He'd  make 
a  good  American  with  the  use  of  very  little  sandpaper. 
Of  course  I  know  him  better  than  I  know  any  other 
member  of  the  Cabinet,  but  he  seems  to  me  the  best- 
balanced  man  of  them  all. 

I  can  assure  you  emphatically  that  the  tariff  act1  does 
command  their  respect  and  is  already  having  an  amazing 
influence  on  their  opinion  of  our  Government.  Lord 
Mersey,  a  distinguished  law  lord  and  a  fine  old  fellow  of 
the  very  best  type  of  Englishman,  said  to  me  last  Sunday, 
"I  wish  to  thank  you  for  stopping  half-way  in  reducing 
your  tariff;  that  will  only  half  ruin  us."  A  lady  of  a 
political  family  (Liberal)  next  whom  I  sat  at  dinner  the 
other  night  (and  these  women  know  their  politics  as  no 
class  of  women  among  us  do)  said:  "Tell  me  something 
about  your  great  President.  We  hadn't  heard  much 
about  him  nor  felt  his  hand  till  your  tariff  bill  passed. 
He  seems  to  have  real  power  in  the  Government.  You 
know  we  do  not  always  know  who  has  power  in  your 
Government."  Lord  Grey,  the  one-time  Governor- 
General  of  Canada,  stopped  looking  at  the  royal  wedding 
presents  the  other  evening  long  enough  to  say:  "The 
United  States  Government  is  waking  up — waking  up." 

I  sum  up  these  atmospheric  conditions — I  do  not  pre- 
sume to  call  them  by  so  definite  a  name  as  recommenda- 
tions: 

We  are  in  the  international  game — not  in  its  Old  World 
intrigues  and  burdens  and  sorrows  and  melancholy,  but 
in  the  inevitable  way  to  leadership  and  to  cheerful  mastery 


lrThe  Underwood  Bill  revising  the  tariff  "downward"  became  a  law  October, 
1913.  It  was  one  of  the  first  important  measures  of  the  new  Wilson  Adminis- 
tration. 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  151 

in  the  future;  and  everybody  knows  that  we  are  in  it 
but  us.  It  is  a  sheer  blind  habit  that  causes  us  to  con- 
tinue to  try  to  think  of  ourselves  as  aloof.  They  think  in 
terms  of  races  here,  and  we  are  of  their  race,  and  we  shall 
become  the  strongest  and  the  happiest  branch  of  it. 

While  we  play  the  game  with  them,  we  shall  play  it 
better  by  playing  it  under  their  long-wrought-out  rules 
of  courtesy  in  everyday  affairs. 

We  shall  play  it  better,  too,  if  our  Government  play  it 
quietly — except  when  the  subject  demands  publicity. 
I  have  heard  that  in  past  years  the  foreign  representatives 
of  our  Government  have  reported  too  few  things  and 
much  too  meagrely.  I  have  heard  since  I  have  been 
here  that  these  representatives  become  timid  because 
Washington  has  for  many  a  year  conducted  its  foreign 
business  too  much  in  the  newspapers;  and  the  foreign 
governments  themselves  are  always  afraid  of  this. 

Meantime  I  hardly  need  tell  you  of  my  appreciation  of 
such  a  chance  to  make  so  interesting  a  study  and  to 
enjoy  so  greatly  the  most  interesting  experience,  I  really 
believe,  in  the  whole  world.  I  only  hope  that  in  time  I 
may  see  how  to  shape  the  constant  progression  of  inci- 
dents into  a  constructive  course  of  events ;  for  we  are  soon 
coming  into  a  time  of  big  changes. 

Most  heartily  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

To  David  F.  Houston1 

American  Embassy,  London  [undated]. 
DEAR  HOUSTON: 

You're  doing  the  bigger  job :  as  the  world  now  is,  there 
is  no  other  job  so  big  as  yours  or  so  well  worth  doing;  but 
I'm  having  more  fun.  I'm  having  more  fun  than  any- 

^ecretary  of  Agriculture  in  President  Wilson's  Cabinet. 


152       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

body  else  anywhere.  It's  a  large  window  you  look 
through  on  the  big  world — here  in  London;  and,  while  I 
am  for  the  moment  missing  many  of  the  things  that  I've 
most  cared  about  hitherto  (such  as  working  for  the 
countryman,  guessing  at  American  public  opinion,  coffee 
that's  fit  to  drink,  corn  bread,  sunshine,  and  old  faces) 
big  new  things  come  on  the  horizon.  Yet  a  man's  per- 
sonal experiences  are  nothing  in  comparison  with  the 
large  job  that  our  Government  has  to  do  in  its  Foreign 
Relations.  I'm  beginning  to  begin  to  see  what  it  is. 
The  American  people  are  taken  most  seriously  here.  I'm 
sometimes  almost  afraid  of  the  respect  and  even  awe  in 
which  they  hold  us.  But  the  American  Government  is  a 
mere  joke  to  them.  They  don't  even  believe  that  we 
ourselves  believe  in  it.  We've  had  no  foreign  policy, 
no  continuity  of  plan,  no  matured  scheme,  no  settled  way 
of  doing  things  and  we  seem  afraid  of  Irishmen  or  Ger- 
mans or  some  "element"  when  a  chance  for  real  action 
comes.  I'm  writing  to  the  President  about  this  and  tell- 
ing him  stories  to  show  how  it  works. 

We  needn't  talk  any  longer  about  keeping  aloof.  If 
Cecil  Spring  Rice  would  tell  you  the  complaints  he  has 
already  presented  and  if  you  saw  the  work  that  goes  on 
here — more  than  in  all  the  other  posts  in  Europe — you'd 
see  that  all  the  old  talk  about  keeping  aloof  is  Missouri 
buncombe.  We're  very  much  "in,"  but  not  frankly  in. 

I  wish  you'd  keep  your  eye  on  these  things  in  cabinet 
meetings.  The  English  and  the  whole  English  world  are 
ours,  if  we  have  the  courtesy  to  take  them — fleet  and  trade 
and  all;  and  we  go  on  pretending  we  are  afraid  of  "en- 
tangling alliances."  What  about  disentangling  alliances? 

We're  in  the  game.  There's  no  use  in  letting  a  few 
wild  Irish  or  cocky  Germans  scare  us.  We  need  courtesy 
and  frankness,  and  the  destinies  of  the  world  will  be  in 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  153 

our  hands.  They'll  fall  there  anyhow  after  we  are  dead; 
but  I  wish  to  see  them  come,  while  my  own  eyes  last. 
Don't  you? 

Heartily  yours, 

W.  H.  P. 

To  Robert  N.  Page1 

London,  December  22, 1913. 
MY  DEAR  BOB: 

.  .  .  We  have  a  splendid,  big  old  house — not  in  any 
way  pretentious — a  commonplace  house  in  fact  for  fashion- 
able London  and  the  least  showy  and  costly  of  the  Em- 
bassies. But  it  does  very  well — it's  big  and  elegantly 
plain  and  dignified.  We  have  fifteen  servants  in  the  house. 
They  do  just  about  what  seven  good  ones  would  do  in  the 
United  States,  but  they  do  it  a  great  deal  better.  They 
pretty  nearly  run  themselves  and  the  place.  The  servant 
question  is  admirably  solved  here.  They  divide  the  work 
according  to  a  fixed  and  unchangeable  system  and  they 
do  it  remarkably  well — in  their  own  slow  English  way. 
We  simply  let  them  alone,  unless  something  important 
happens  to  go  wrong.  Katharine  simply  teUs  the  butler 
that  we'll  have  twenty-four  people  to  dinner  to-morrow 
night  and  gives  him  a  list  of  them.  As  they  come  in,  the 
men  at  the  door  address  every  one  correctly— -Your 
Lordship  or  Your  Grace,  or  what  not.  When  they  are 
ah1  in,  the  butler  comes  to  the  reception  room  and  an- 
nounces dinner.  We  do  the  rest.  As  every  man  goes 
out,  the  butler  asks  him  if  he  '11  have  a  glass  of  water  or  of 
grog  or  a  cigar ;  he  calls  his  car,  puts  him  in  it,  and  that 's 
the  end  of  it.  Bully  good  plan.  But  in  the  United 
States  that  butler,  whose  wages  are  less  than  the  ram- 
shackle nigger  I  had  at  Garden  City  to  keep  the  place 

JOf  Aberdeen,  North  Carolina,  the  Ambassador's  brother. 


154       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

neat,  would  have  a  business  of  his  own.  But  here  he  is  a 
sort  of  duke  downstairs.  He  sits  at  the  head  of  the  ser- 
vants' table  and  orders  them  around  and  that's  worth 
more  than  money  to  an  Old  World  servile  mind. 

The  "season"  doesn't  begin  till  the  King  comes  back 
and  Parliament  opens,  in  February.  But  every  kind  of 
club  and  patriotic  and  educational  organization  is  giving 
its  annual  dinner  now.  I've  been  going  to  them  and 
making  after-dinner  speeches  to  get  acquainted  and  also 
to  preach  into  them  some  little  knowledge  of  American 
ways  and  ideals.  They  are  very  nice — very.  You  could 
not  suggest  or  imagine  any  improvement  in  their  kindness 
and  courtesy.  They  do  all  these  things  in  some  ways 
better  than  we.  They  have  more  courtesy.  They  make 
far  shorter  speeches.  But  they  do  them  all  too  much 
alike.  Still  they  do  get  much  pleasure  out  of  them  and 
much  instruction  too. 

Then  we  are  invited  to  twice  as  many  private  dinners 
and  luncheons  as  we  can  attend.  At  these,  these  people  are 
at  their  best.  But  it  is  yet  quite  confusing.  A  sea  of 
friendly  faces  greets  you — you  can 't  remember  the  names. 
Nobody  ever  introduces  anybody  to  anybody;  and  if  by 
accident  anybody  ever  tries,  he  simply  says—  "Uh-o-oh- 
Lord  Xzwwxkmpt."  You  couldn't  understand  it  if  you 
had  to  be  hanged. 

But  we  are  untangling  some  of  this  confusion  and  com- 
ing to  make  very  real  and  very  charming  friends. 

About  December  20,  everybody  who  is  anybody  leaves 
London.  They  go  to  their  country  places  for  about  a 
fortnight  or  they  go  to  the  continent.  Almost  everything 
stops.  It  has  been  the  only  dull  time  at  the  Embassy  that 
I  Ve  had.  Nothing  is  going  on  now.  But  up  to  two  days 
ago,  it  kept  a  furious  gait.  I'm  glad  of  a  little  rest. 

Dealing   with   the   Government   doesn't   present   the 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  155 

difficulties  that  I  feared.  Sir  Edward  Grey  is  in  the  main 
responsible  for  the  ease  with  which  it  is  done.  He  is  a 
frank  and  fair  and  truthful  man.  You  will  find  him  the 
day  after  to-morrow  precisely  where  you  left  him  the  day 
before  yesterday.  We  get  along  very  well  indeed.  I 
think  we  should  get  along  if  we  had  harder  tasks  one  with 
the  other.  And  the  English  people  are  even  more  friendly 
than  the  Government.  You  have  no  idea  of  their  respect 
for  the  American  Nation.  Of  course  there  is  much  ig- 
norance, sometimes  of  a  surprising  sort.  Very  many 
people,  for  instance,  think  that  all  the  Americans  are  rich. 
A  lady  told  me  the  other  night  how  poor  she  is — she  is 
worth  only  $1,250,000 — "nothing  like  all  you  Americans." 
She  was  quite  sincere.  In  fact  the  wealth  of  the  world 
(and  the  poverty,  too)  is  centred  here  in  an  amazing  way. 
You  can't  easily  take  it  in — how  rich  or  how  many  rich 
English  families  there  are.  They  have  had  wealth  for 
generation  after  generation,  and  the  surprising  thing  is, 
they  take  care  of  it.  They  spend  enormously — seldom 
ostentatiously — but  they  are  more  than  likely  to  add 
some  of  their  income  every  year  to  their  principal.  They 
have  better  houses  in  town  and  in  the  country  than  I  had 
imagined.  They  spend  vast  fortunes  in  making  homes 
in  which  they  expect  to  live  forever — generation  after 
generation. 

To  an  American  democrat  the  sad  thing  is  the  servile 
class.  Before  the  law  the  chimney  sweep  and  the  peer 
have  exactly  the  same  standing.  They  have  worked 
that  out  with  absolute  justice.  But  there  it  stops.  The 
serving  class  is  what  we  should  call  abject.  It  does  not 
occur  to  them  that  they  might  ever  become — or  that 
their  descendants  might  ever  become — ladies  and  gentle- 
men. 

The  "courts"  are  a  very  fine  sight.     The  diplomatic 


156       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

ladies  sit  on  a  row  of  seats  on  one  side  the  throne  room, 
the  Duchesses  on  a  row  opposite.  The  King  and  Queen 
sit  on  a  raised  platform  with  the  royal  family.  The 
Ambassadors  come  in  first  and  bow  and  the  King  shakes 
hands  with  them.  Then  come  the  forty  or  more  Min- 
isters— no  shake  for  them.  In  front  of  the  King  are 
a  few  officers  in  gaudy  uniform,  some  Indians  of  high 
rank  (from  India)  and  the  court  officials  are  all  round 
about,  with  pages  who  hold  up  the  Queen's  train.  When- 
ever the  Queen  and  King  move,  two  court  officials  back 
before  them,  one  carrying  a  gold  stick  and  the  other  a 
silver  stick. 

The  ladies  to  be  presented  come  along.  They  curtsy 
to  the  King,  then  to  the  Queen,  and  disappear  in  the  rooms 
farther  on.  The  Ambassadors  (all  in  gaudy  uniforms  but 
me)  stand  near  the  throne— stand  through  the  whole  per- 
formance. One  night  after  an  hour  or  two  of  ladies  com- 
ing along  and  curtsying  and  disappearing,  I  whispered  to 
the  Spanish  Ambassador,  "There  must  be  five  hundred 
of  these  ladies."  "  U-m,"  said  he,  as  he  shifted  his  weight 
to  the  other  foot,  "I'm  sure  there  are  five  thousand!" 
When  they've  all  been  presented,  the  King  and  Queen  go 
into  a  room  where  a  stand-up  supper  is  served.  The  royalty 
and  the  diplomatic  folks  go  into  that  room,  too ;  and  their 
Majesties  walk  around  and  talk  with  whom  they  please. 
Into  another  and  bigger  room  everybody  else  goes  and  gets 
supper.  Then  we  all  flock  back  to  the  throne  room;  and 
preceded  by  the  backing  courtiers,  their  Majesties  come 
out  into  the  floor  and  bow  to  the  Ambassadors,  then  to 
the  Duchesses,  then  to  the  general  diplomatic  group  and 
they  go  out.  The  show  is  ended.  We  come  downstairs 
and  wait  an  hour  for  our  car  and  come  home  about  mid- 
night. The  uniforms  on  the  men  and  the  jewels  on  the 
ladies  (by  the  ton)  and  their  trains — all  this  makes  a  very 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  157 

brilliant  spectacle.  The  American  Ambassador  and  his 
Secretaries  and  the  Swiss  and  the  Portuguese  are  the  only 
ones  dressed  in  citizens'  clothes. 

At  a  levee,  the  King  receives  only  gentlemen.  Here 
they  come  in  all  kinds  of  uniforms.  If  you  are  not  en- 
titled to  wear  a  uniform,  you  have  a  dark  suit,  knee 
breeches,  and  a  funny  little  tin  sword.  I'm  going  to 
adopt  the  knee  breeches  part  of  it  for  good  when  I  go 
home — golf  breeches  in  the  day  time  and  knee  breeches 
at  night.  You've  no  idea  how  nice  and  comfortable 
they  are — though  it  is  a  devil  of  a  lot  of  trouble  to  put 
'em  on.  Of  course  every  sort  of  man  here  but  the 
Americans  wears  some  sort  of  decorations  around  his  neck 
or  on  his  stomach,  at  these  functions.  For  my  part,  I 
like  it — here.  The  women  sparkle  with  diamonds,  the  men 
strut ;  the  King  is  a  fine  man  with  a  big  bass  voice  and 
he  talks  very  well  and  is  most  agreeable ;  the  Queen  is  very 
gracious;  the  royal  ladies  (Queen  Victoria's  daughters, 
chiefly)  are  nice;  you  see  all  the  big  Generals  and  all 
the  big  Admirals  and  the  great  folk  of  every  sort — fine 
show. 

You've  no  idea  how  much  time  and  money  they  spend 
on  shooting.  The  King  has  been  shooting  most  of  the 
time  for  three  months.  He 's  said  to  be  a  very  good  shot. 
He  has  sent  me,  on  different  occasions,  grouse,  a  haunch 
of  venison,  and  pheasants. 

But  except  on  these  occasions,  you  never  think  about 
the  King.  The  people  go  about  their  business  as  if  he 
didn  't  exist,  of  course.  They  begin  work  much  later  than 
we  do.  You  '11  not  find  any  of  the  shops  open  till  about 
ten  o'clock.  The  sun  doesn  't  shine  except  once  in  a  while 
and  you  don't  know  it's  daylight  till  about  ten.  You 
know  the  House  of  Commons  has  night  sessions  always. 
Nobody  is  in  the  Government  offices,  except  clerks  and 


158       THE   LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

secretaries,  till  the  afternoon.     We  dine  at  eight,  and, 
when  we  have  a  big  dinner,  at  eight  thirty. 

I  like  these  people  (most  of  'em)  immensely.  They 
are  very  genuine  and  frank,  good  fighters  and  folk  of 
our  own  sort — after  you  come  to  know  them.  At  first 
they  have  no  manners  and  don't  know  what  to  do. 
But  they  warm  up  to  you  later.  They  have  abundant 
wit,  but  much  less  humour  than  we.  And  they  know  how 
to  live. 

Except  that  part  of  life  which  is  ministered  to  in 
mechanical  ways,  they  resist  conveniences.  They  don't 
really  like  bathrooms  yet.  They  prefer  great  tin  tubs, 
and  they  use  bowls  and  pitchers  when  a  bathroom  is  next 
door.  The  telephone — Lord  deliver  us ! — I '  ve  given  it  up. 
They  know  nothing  about  it.  (It  is  a  government  con- 
cern, but  so  is  the  telegraph  and  the  post-office,  and  they 
are  remarkably  good  and  swift.)  You  can't  buy  a  news- 
paper on  the  street,  except  in  the  afternoon.  Cigar-stores 
are  as  scarce  as  hen's  teeth.  Barber-shops  are  all  "hair- 
dressers"— dirty  and  wretched  beyond  description.  You 
can't  get  a  decent  pen;  their  newspapers  are  as  big  as  table- 
cloths. In  this  aquarium  in  which  we  live  (it  rains  every 
day)  they  have  only  three  vegetables  and  two  of  them  are 
cabbages.  They  grow  all  kinds  of  fruit  in  hothouses,  and 
(I  can 't  explain  this)  good  land  in  admirable  cultivation 
thirty  miles  from  London  sells  for  about  half  what  good 
corn  land  in  Iowa  brings.  Lloyd  George  has  scared  the 
land-owners  to  death. 

Party  politics  runs  so  high  that  many  Tories  will  not 
invite  Liberals  to  dinner.  They  are  almost  at  the  point 
of  civil  war.  I  asked  the  Prime  Minister  the  other  day 
how  he  was  going  to  prevent  war.  He  didn't  give  any 
clear  answer.  During  this  recess  of  Parliament,  though 
there's  no  election  pending,  all  the  Cabinet  are  all  the 


ENGLAND    BEFORE    THE    WAR  159 

time  going  about  making  speeches  on  Ireland.     They  talk 
to  me  about  it. 

"What  would  you  do?" 

"Send  'em  all  to  the  United  States,"  say  I. 

"No,  no." 

They  have  had  the  Irish  question  three  hundred  years 
and  they  wouldn't  be  happy  without  it.  One  old  Tory 
talked  me  deaf  abusing  the  Liberal  Government. 

"You  do  this  way  in  the  United  States — hate  one  an- 
other, don't  you?" 

"No,"  said  I,  "we  live  like  angels  in  perfect  harmony 
except  a  few  weeks  before  election." 

"The  devil  you  do!  You  don't  hate  one  another? 
What  do  you  do  for  enemies?  I  couldn't  get  along  with- 
out enemies  to  swear  at." 

If  you  think  it's  all  play,  you  fool  yourself;  I  mean  this 
job.  There's  no  end  of  the  work.  It  consists  of  these 
parts :  Receiving  people  for  two  hours  every  day,  some  on 
some  sort  of  business,  some  merely  "to  pay  respects," 
attending  to  a  large  (and  exceedingly  miscellaneous) 
mail;  going  to  the  Foreign  Office  on  all  sorts  of  errands; 
looking  up  the  oddest  assortment  of  information  that 
you  ever  heard  of;  making  reports  to  Washington  on  all 
sorts  of  things;  then  the  so-called  social  duties — giving 
dinners,  receptions,  etc.,  and  attending  them.  I  hear  the 
most  important  news  I  get  at  so-called  social  functions. 
Then  the  court  functions;  and  the  meetings  and  speeches! 
The  American  Ambassador  must  go  all  over  England  and 
explain  every  American  thing.  You  'd  never  recover  from 
the  shock  if  you  could  hear  me  speaking  about  Education, 
Agriculture,  the  observance  of  Christmas,  the  Navy,  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  Mexico,  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  Co-educa- 
tion, Woman  Suffrage,  Medicine,  Law,  Radio-Activity, 
Flying,  the  Supreme  Court,  the  President  as  a  Man  of 


160       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

letters,  Hookworm,  the  Negro — just  get  down  the  Ency- 
clopaedia and  continue  the  list.  I've  done  this  every 
week-night  for  a  month,  hand  running,  with  a  few  after- 
noon performances  thrown  in!  I  have  missed  only  one 
engagement  in  these  seven  months;  and  that  was  merely 
a  private  luncheon.  I  have  been  late  only  once.  I 
have  the  best  chauffeur  in  the  world — he  deserves  credit 
for  much  of  that.  Of  course,  I  don't  get  time  to  read 
a  book.  In  fact,  I  can't  keep  up  with  what  goes  on  at 
home.  To  read  a  newspaper  eight  or  ten  days  old,  when 
they  come  in  bundles  of  three  or  four — is  impossible. 
What  isn't  telegraphed  here,  I  miss;  and  that  means  I 
miss  most  things. 

I  forgot,  there  are  a  dozen  other  kinds  of  activities,  such 
as  American  marriages,  which  they  always  want  the  Am- 
bassador to  attend ;  getting  them  out  of  jail,  when  they 
are  jugged  (I  have  an  American  woman  on  my  hands  now, 
whose  four  children  come  to  see  me  every  day);  looking 
after  the  American  insane;  helping  Americans  move  the 
bones  of  their  ancestors ;  interpreting  the  income-tax  lawr ; 
receiving  medals  for  Americans;  hearing  American  fid- 
dlers, pianists,  players ;  sitting  for  American  sculptors  and 
photographers;  sending  telegrams  for  property  owners  in 
Mexico;  reading  letters  from  thousands  of  people  who 
have  shares  in  estates  here ;  writing  letters  of  introduction ; 
getting  tickets  to  the  House  Gallery;  getting  seats  in  the 
Abbey;  going  with  people  to  this  and  that  and  t'other; 
getting  tickets  to  the  races,  the  art-galleries,  the  House  of 
Lords;  answering  fool  questions  about  the  United  States 
put  by  Englishmen.  With  a  military  attache,  a  naval 
attache,  three  secretaries,  a  private  secretary,  two  auto- 
mobiles, Alice's  private  secretary,  a  veterinarian,  an  im- 
migration agent,  consuls  everywhere,  a  despatch  agent, 
lawyers,  doctors,  messengers — they  keep  us  all  busy.  A 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  161 

woman  turned  up  dying  the  other  day.  I  sent  for  a  big 
doctor.  She  got  well.  As  if  that  wasn't  enough,  both 
the  woman  and  the  doctor  had  to  come  and  thank  me 
(fifteen  minutes  each).  Then  each  wrote  a  letter!  Then 
there  are  people  who  are  going  to  have  a  Fair  here  ;  others 
who  have  a  Fair  coming  on  at  San  Francisco;  others  at 
San  Diego  ;  secretaries  and  returning  and  outgoing  diplo- 
mats come  and  go  (lunch  for  'em  all);  niggers  come  up 
from  Liberia;  Rhodes  Scholars  from  Oxford;  Presidential 
candidates  to  succeed  Huerta;  people  who  present  books; 
women  who  wish  to  go  to  court;  Jews  who  are  excited 
about  Rumania;  passports,  passports  to  sign;  peace  com- 
mittees about  the  hundred  years  of  peace;  opera  singers 
going  to  the  United  States  ;  artists  who  have  painted  some 
American's  portrait  —  don't  you  see?  I  haven't  said  a 
word  about  reporters  and  editors:  the  city's  full  of  them. 
A  Happy  New  Year. 

Affectionately, 


To  Ralph  W.  Page1 

London,  December  23,  1913. 
DEAR  RALPH: 

.  .  .  The  game  is  pretty  much  as  it  has  been.  I 
can  't  think  of  any  new  kinds  of  things  to  write  you.  The 
old  kinds  simply  multiply  and  repeat  themselves.  But  we 
are  beginning  now  really  to  become  acquainted,  and  some 
life  friendships  will  grow  out  of  our  experience.  And 
there's  no  doubt  about  its  being  instructive.  I  get 
glimpses  of  the  way  in  which  great  governments  deal  with 
one  another,  in  ways  that  our  isolated,  and,  therefore, 
safe  government  seMom  has  any  experience  of.  For 
instance,  one  of  the  Lords  of  the  Admiralty  told  me  the 
other  night  that  he  never  gets  out  of  telephone  reach  of 

aOf  Pinehurst,  North  Carolina,  the  Ambassador's  eldest  son. 


162       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

the  office — not  even  half  an  hour.  "The  Admiralty," 
said  he,  "never  sleeps."  He  has  a  telephone  by  his  bed 
which  he  can  hear  at  any  moment  in  the  night.  I  don't 
believe  that  they  really  expect  the  German  fleet  to  attack 
them  any  day  or  night.  But  they  would  not  be  at  all 
surprised  if  it  did  so  to-night.  They  talk  all  the  time  of 
the  danger  and  of  the  probability  of  war ;  they  don't  expect 
it;  but  most  wars  have  come  without  warning,  and  they 
are  all  the  time  prepared  to  begin  a  fight  in  an  hour. 

They  talk  about  how  much  Germany  must  do  to 
strengthen  her  frontier  against  Russia  and  her  new 
frontier  on  the  Balkan  States.  They  now  have  these 
problems  in  hand  and  therefore  they  are  for  the  moment 
not  likely  to  provoke  a  fight.  But  they  might. 

It  is  all  pitiful  to  see  them  thinking  forever  about  danger 
and  defense.  The  controversy  about  training  boys  for  the 
army  never  ends.  We  don't  know  in  the  United  States 
what  we  owe  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean — safe  separation  from 
all  these  troubles.  .  .  . 

But  I've  often  asked  both  Englishmen  and  Americans 
in  a  dining  room  where  there  were  many  men  of  each 
country,  whether  they  could  look  over  the  company  and 
say  which  were  English  and  which  were  Americans. 
Nobody  can  tell  till — they  begin  to  talk. 

The  ignorance  of  the  two  countries,  each  of  the  other, 
is  beyond  all  belief.  A  friend  of  Kitty's — an  American- 
received  a  letter  from  the  United  States  yesterday.  The 
maid  noticed  the  stamp,  which  had  the  head  of  George 
Washington  on  it.  Every  stamp  in  this  kingdom  bears  the 
image  of  King  George.  She  asked  if  the  American  stamp 
had  on  it  the  head  of  the  American  Ambassador!  I've 
known  far  wiser  people  to  ask  far  more  foolish  questions. 

Affectionately, 

W.  H.  P. 


ENGLAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR  163 

To  Mrs.  Ralph  W.  Page 

London,  Christmas-is-coming,  1913. 
MY  DEAR  LEILA: 

.  .  .  Her  work  [Mrs.  Walter  H.  Page's]  is  all  the 
work  of  going  and  receiving  and — of  reading.  She  reads 
incessantly  and  enormously;  and,  when  she  gets  tired, 
she  goes  to  bed.  That's  all  there  is  about  it.  Lord! 
I  wish  I  could.  But,  when  I  get  tired,  I  have  to  go  and 
make  another  speech.  They  think  the  American  Am- 
bassador has  omniscience  for  a  foible  and  oratory  as  a 
pastime. 

In  some  ways  my  duties  are  very  instructive.  We  get 
different  points  of  view  on  many  things,  some  better  than 
we  had  before  had,  some  worse.  For  instance,  life  is 
pretty  well  laid  out  here  in  water-tight  compartments; 
and  you  can't  let  a  stream  in  from  one  to  another  with- 
out danger  of  sinking  the  ship.  Four  reporters  have  been 
here  to-day  because  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sayre1  arrived  this 
morning.  Every  one  of  'em  asked  the  same  question, 
"Who  met  them  at  the  station?"  That's  the  chief  thing 
they  wished  to  know.  When  I  said  "I  did"  —that  fixed 
the  whole  thing  on  the  highest  peg  of  dignity.  They 
could  classify  the  whole  proceeding  properly,  and  they 
went  off  happy.  Again:  You've  got  to  go  in  to  din- 
ner in  the  exact  order  prescribed  by  the  constitution; 
and,  if  you  avoid  that  or  confuse  that,  you'll  never  be  able 
to  live  it  down.  And  so  about  Government,  Literature, 
Art — everything.  Don't  you  forget  your  water-tight 
compartments.  If  you  do,  you  are  gone!  They  have  the 
same  toasts  at  every  public  dinner.  One  is  to  "the 
guests."  Now  you  needn't  say  a  word  about  the  guests 

JMr.  and  Mrs.  Francis  B.  Sayre,  son-in-law  and  daughter  of  President  Wilson, 
at  that  time  on  their  honeymoon  trip  in  Europe. 


164       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

when  you  respond.  But  they've  been  having  toasts  to 
the  guests  since  the  time  of  James  I  and  they  can't  change 
it.  They  had  me  speak  to  "the  guests"  at  a  club  last 
night,  when  they  wanted  me  to  talk  about  Mexico!  The 
winter  has  come — the  winter  months  at  least.  But  they 
have  had  no  cold  weather — not  so  cold  as  you  have  in 
Pinehurst.  But  the  sun  has  gone  out  to  sea — clean  gone. 
We  never  see  it.  A  damp  darkness  (semi-darkness  at 
least)  hangs  over  us  all  the  time.  But  we  manage  to  feel 
our  way  about. 

A  poor  photograph  goes  to  you  for  Xmas — a  poor  thing 
enough  surely.  But  you  get  Uncle  Bob1  busy  on  the  job 
of  paying  for  an  Ambassador's  house.  Then  we'll  bring 
Christmas  presents  home  for  you.  What  a  game  we  are 
playing,  we  poor  folks  here,  along  with  Ambassadors 
whose  governments  pay  them  four  times  what  ours  pays. 
But  we  don't  give  the  game  away,  you  bet  I  We  throw 
the  bluff  with  a  fine,  straight  poker  face. 

Affectionately, 

W.  H.  P. 

To  Frank  N.  Doubleday  and  Others 

London,  Sunday,  December  28, 1913. 
MY  DEAR  COMRADES: 

I  was  never  one  of  those  abnormal  creatures  who  got 
Christmas  all  ready  by  the  Fourth  of  July.  The  true 
spirit  of  the  celebration  has  just  now  begun  to  work  on  me 
— three  days  late.  In  this  respect  the  spirit  is  very  like 
Christmas  plum-pudding.  Moreover,  we  've  just  got  the 
patriotic  fervour  flowing  at  high  tide  this  morning.  This 
is  the  President's  birthday.  We  've  put  up  the  Stars  and 


*Mr.  Robert  N.  Page,  the  Ambassador's  brother,  was  at  this  time  a  Congress- 
man from  North  Carolina. 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  165 

Stripes  on  the  roof;  and  half  an  hour  ago  the  King 's  Mas- 
ter of  Ceremonies  drove  up  in  a  huge  motor  car  and,  being 
shown  into  my  presence  in  the  state  drawing  room,  held 
his  hat  in  his  hand  and  (said  he) : 

"Your  Excellency:  I  am  commanded  by  the  King  to 
express  to  you  His  Majesty's  congratulations  on  the 
birthday  of  the  President,  to  wish  him  a  successful  ad- 
ministration and  good  health  and  long  life  and  to  con- 
vey His  Majesty's  greetings  to  Your  Excellency:  and  His 
Majesty  commands  me  to  express  the  hope  that  you  will 
acquaint  the  President  with  His  Majesty's  good  wishes." 

Whereto  I  made  just  as  pretty  a  little  speech  as  your 
'umble  sarvant  could.  Then  we  sat  down,  I  called  in 
Mrs.  Page  and  my  secretary  and  we  talked  like  human 
beings. 

Having  worked  like  the  devil,  upon  whom,  I  imagine, 
at  this  bibulous  season  many  heavy  duties  fall— having  thus 
toiled  for  two  months — the  international  docket  is  clean, 
I've  got  done  a  round  of  twenty-five  speeches  (0  Lord!) 
I've  slept  three  whole  nights,  I  've  made  my  dinner-calls — 
you  see  I  'm  feeling  pretty  well,  in  this  first  period  of  quiet 
life  I've  yet  found  in  this  Babylon.  Praise  Heaven! 
they  go  off  for  Christmas.  Everything's  shut  up  tight. 
The  streets  of  London  are  as  lonely  and  as  quiet  as  the 
road  to  Oyster  Bay  while  the  Oyster  is  in  South  America. 
It's  about  as  mild  here  as  with  you  in  October  and  as 
damp  as  Sheepshead's  Bay  in  an  autumn  storm.  But 
such  people  as  you  meet  complain  of  the  c-o-l-d — the 
c-o-l-d;  and  they  run  into  their  heatless  houses  and  put 
on  extra  waistcoats  and  furs  and  throw  shawls  over  their 
knees  and  curse  Lloyd  George  and  enjoy  themselves. 
They  are  a  great  people — even  without  mint  juleps  in 
summer  or  eggnog  in  winter;  and  I  like  them.  The  old 
gouty  Lords  curse  the  Americans  for  the  decline  of  drink- 


166       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

ing.  And  you  can't  live  among  them  without  laughing 
yourself  to  death  and  admiring  them,  too.  It's  a  fine  race 
to  be  sprung  from. 

All  this  field  of  international  relations — you  fellows 
regard  it  as  a  bore.  So  it  used  to  be  before  my  entrance 
into  the  game!  But  it's  everlastingly  interesting.  Just 
to  give  him  a  shock,  I  asked  the  Foreign  Secretary  the 
other  day  what  difference  it  would  make  if  the  Foreign  Of- 
fices were  all  to  go  out  of  business  and  all  the  Ambassadors 
were  to  be  hanged.  He  thought  a  minute  and  said: 
"Suppose  war  kept  on  in  the  Balkans,  the  Russians  killed 
all  their  Jews,  Germany  took  Holland  and  sent  an  air-fleet 
over  London,  the  Japanese  landed  in  California,  the  Eng- 
lish took  all  the  oil-wells  in  Central  and  South  America 
and- 

"Good  Lord!"  said  I,  "do  you  and  I  prevent  all  these 
calamities?  If  so,  we  don't  get  half  the  credit  that  is  due 
us — do  we?" 

You  could  ask  the  same  question  about  any  group  or 
profession  of  men  in  the  world ;  and  on  a  scratch,  I  imagine 
that  any  of  them  would  be  missed  less  than  they  think. 
But  the  realness  and  the  bigness  of  the  job  here  in  London 
is  simply  oppressive.  We  don't  even  know  what  it  is 
in  the  United  States  and,  of  course,  we  don't  go  about 
doing  it  right.  If  we  did,  we  shouldn't  pick  up  a  green 
fellow  on  the  plain  of  Long  Island  and  send  him  here: 
we  'd  train  the  most  capable  male  babies  we  have  from  the 
cradle.  But  this  leads  a  long  way. 

As  I  look  back  over  these  six  or  seven  months,  from 
the  pause  that  has  come  this  week,  I'm  bound  to  say 
(being  frank,  not  to  say  vain)  that  I  had  the  good  fortune 
to  do  one  piece  of  work  that  was  worth  the  effort  and 
worth  coming  to  do — about  that  infernal  Mexican  situ- 
ation. An  abler  man  would  have  done  it  better;  but, 


ENGLAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR  167 

as  it  was,  I  did  it;  and  I  have  a  most  appreciative  letter 
about  it  from  the  President. 

By  thunder,  he's  doing  his  job,  isn't  he?  Whether 
you  like  the  job  or  not,  you  Ve  got  to  grant  that.  When 
I  first  came  over  here,  I  found  a  mild  curiosity  about  Wil- 
son— only  mild.  But  now  they  sit  up  and  listen  and  ask 
most  eager  questions.  He  has  pressed  his  personality 
most  strongly  on  the  governing  class  here. 

Yours  heartily, 

W.  H.  P. 

To  the  President 

American  Embassy,  London 

[May  11, 1914.] 
DEAR  MR.  PRESIDENT: 

The  King  of  Denmark  (I  always  think  of  Hamlet) 
having  come  to  make  his  royal  kinsman  of  these  Isles  a 
visit,  his  royal  kinsman  to-night  gave  a  state  dinner  at 
the  palace  whereto  the  Ambassadors  of  the  eight  Great 
Powers  were,  of  course,  invited.  Now  I  don't  know  how 
other  kings  do,  but  I  'm  willing  to  swear  by  King  George 
for  a  job  of  this  sort.  The  splendour  of  the  thing  is  truly 
regal  and  the  friendliness  of  it  very  real  and  human; 
and  the  company  most  uncommon.  Of  course  the  Am- 
bassadors and  their  wives  were  there,  the  chief  rulers  of 
the  Empire  and  men  and  women  of  distinction  and  most  of 
the  royal  family.  The  dinner  and  the  music  and  the  plate 
and  the  decorations  and  the  jewels  and  the  uniforms — all 
these  were  regal;  but  there  is  a  human  touch  about  it  that 
seems  almost  democratic. 

All  for  His  Majesty  of  Denmark,  a  country  with  fewer 
people  and  less  wealth  than  New  Jersey.  This  whole 
royal  game  is  most  interesting.  Lloyd  George  and  H.  H. 
Asquith  and  John  Morley  were  there,  all  in  white  knee 


168       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

breeches  of  silk,  and  swords  and  most  gaudy  coats — these 
that  are  the  radicals  of  the  Kingdom,  in  literature  and  in 
action.  Veterans  of  Indian  and  South  African  wars  stood 
on  either  side  of  every  door  and  of  every  stairway,  dressed 
as  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  dressed,  like  so  many  statues,  never 
blinking  an  eye.  Every  person  in  the  company  is  printed, 
in  all  the  papers,  with  every  title  he  bears.  Crowds  lined 
the  streets  in  front  of  the  palace  to  see  the  carriages  go 
in  and  to  guess  who  was  in  each.  To-morrow  the  Diplo- 
matic Corps  calls  on  King  Christian  and  to-morrow  night 
King  George  commands  us  to  attend  the  opera  as  his 
guests. 

Whether  it 's  the  court,  or  the  honours  and  the  orders  and 
all  the  social  and  imperial  spoils,  that  keep  the  illusion  up, 
or  whether  it  is  the  Old  World  inability  to  change  any- 
thing, you  can't  ever  quite  decide.  In  Defoe's  tune  they 
put  pots  of  herbs  on  the  desks  of  every  court  in  London 
to  keep  the  plague  off.  The  pots  of  herbs  are  yet  put 
on  every  desk  in  every  court  room  in  London.  Several 
centuries  ago  somebody  tried  to  break  into  the  Bank  of 
England.  A  special  guard  was  detached — a  little  com- 
pany of  soldiers — to  stand  watch  at  night.  The  bank  has 
twice  been  moved  and  is  now  housed  in  a  building  that 
would  stand  a  siege;  but  that  guard,  in  the  same  uniform 
goes  on  duty  every  night.  Nothing  is  ever  abolished, 
nothing  ever  changed.  On  the  anniversary  of  King 
Charles's  execution,  his  statue  in  Trafalgar  Square  is 
covered  with  flowers.  Every  month,  too,  new  books 
appear  about  the  mistresses  of  old  kings — as  if  they,  too, 
were  of  more  than  usual  interest :  I  mean  serious,  histori- 
cal books.  From  the  King 's  palace  to  the  humblest  house 
I've  been  in,  there  are  pictures  of  kings  and  queens.  In 
every  house,  too  (to  show  how  nothing  ever  changes),  the 
towels  are  folded  in  the  same  peculiar  way.  In  every 


ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE   WAR  169 

grate  in  the  kingdom  the  coal  fire  is  laid  in  precisely  the 
same  way.  There  is  not  a  salesman  in  any  shop  on  Pic- 
cadilly who  does  not,  in  the  season,  wear  a  long-tail  coat. 
Everywhere  they  say  a  second  grace  at  dinner — not  at  the 
end — but  before  the  dessert,  because  two  hundred  years 
ago  they  dared  not  wait  longer  lest  the  parson  be  under  the 
table :  the  grace  is  said  to-day  before  dessert  I  I  tried  three 
months  to  persuade  my  "Boots"  to  leave  off  blacking  the 
soles  of  my  shoes  under  the  instep.  He  simply  couldn't 
do  it.  Every  "Boots"  in  the  Kingdom  does  it.  A  man 
of  learning  had  an  article  in  an  afternoon  paper  a  few 
weeks  ago  which  began  thus:  "It  is  now  universally 
conceded  by  the  French  and  the  Americans  that  the 
decimal  system  is  a  failure,"  and  he  went  on  to  concoct 
a  scheme  for  our  money  that  would  be  more  "rational" 
and  "historical."  In  this  hot  debate  about  Ulster  a  fre- 
quent phrase  used  is,  "Let  us  see  if  we  can't  find  the  right 
formula  to  solve  the  difficulty";  their  whole  lives  are 
formulas.  Now  may  not  all  the  honours  and  garters  and 
thistles  and  0.  M.'s  and  K.  C.  B.'s  and  all  manner  of  gaudy 
sinecures  be  secure,  only  because  they  can't  abolish  any- 
thing? My  servants  sit  at  table  in  a  certain  order,  and 
Mrs.  Page 's  maid  wouldn  't  yield  her  precedence  to  a  mere 
housemaid  for  any  mortal  consideration — any  more  than  a 
royal  person  of  a  certain  rank  would  yield  to  one  of  a 
lower  rank.  A  real  democracy  is  as  far  off  as  doomsday. 
So  you  argue,  till  you  remember  that  it  is  these  same 
people  who  made  human  liberty  possible — to  a  degree — 
and  till  you  sit  day  after  day  and  hear  them  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  mercilessly  pounding  one  another.  Then 
you  are  puzzled.  Do  they  keep  all  these  outworn  things 
because  they  are  incapable  of  changing  anything,  or  do 
these  outworn  burdens  keep  them  from  becoming  able  to 
change  anything?  I  daresay  it  works  both  ways.  Every 


170       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

venerable  ruin,  every  outworn  custom,  makes  the  King 
more  secure;  and  the  King  gives  veneration  to  every  ruin 
and  keeps  respect  for  every  outworn  custom. 

Praise  God  for  the  Atlantic  Ocean !  It  is  the  geographi- 
cal foundation  of  our  liberties.  Yet,  as  I  Ve  often  written, 
there  are  men  here,  real  men,  ruling  men,  mighty  men, 
and  a  vigorous  stock. 

A  civilization,  especially  an  old  civilization,  isn't  an 
easy  nut  to  crack.  But  I  notice  that  the  men  of  vision 
keep  their  thought  on  us.  They  never  forget  that  we 
are  100  million  strong  and  that  we  dare  do  new  things; 
and  they  dearly  love  to  ask  questions  about — Rockefeller ! 
Our  power,  our  adaptability,  our  potential  wealth  they 
never  forget.  They'll  hold  fast  to  our  favour  for  reasons 
of  prudence  as  well  as  for  reasons  of  kinship.  And,  when- 
ever we  choose  to  assume  the  leadership  of  the  world, 
they'll  grant  it — gradually — and  follow  loyally.  They 
cannot  become  French,  and  they  dislike  the  Germans. 
They  must  keep  in  our  boat  for  safety  as  well  as  for 
comfort. 

Yours  heartily, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

The  following  extracts  are  made  from  other  letters 
written  at  this  time: 

.  .  .  To-night  I  had  a  long  talk  with  the  Duchess 
of  X,  a  kindly  woman  who  spends  much  time  and  money 
in  the  most  helpful  "uplift"  work;  that's  the  kind  of 
woman  she  is. 

Now  she  and  the  Duke  are  invited  to  dine  at  the  French 
Ambassador's  to-morrow  night.  "If  the  Duke  went  into 
any  house  where  there  was  any  member  of  this  Govern- 
ment," said  she,  "he'd  turn  and  walk  out  again.  We 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  171 

thought  we'd  better  find  out  who  the  French  Ambassa- 
dor 's  guests  are.  We  didn  't  wish  to  ask  him  nor  to  have 
correspondence  about  it.  Therefore  the  Duke  sent  his 
Secretary  quietly  to  ask  the  Ambassador's  Secretary — 
before  we  accepted." 

This  is  now  a  common  occurrence.  We  had  Sir  Edward 
Grey  to  dinner  a  little  while  ago  and  we  had  to  make  sure 
we  had  no  Tory  guests  that  night. 

This  same  Duchess  of  X  sat  in  the  Peeresses'  gallery  of 
the  House  of  Lords  to-night  till  7  o  'clock.  "I  had  to  sit  in 
plain  sight  of  the  wives  of  two  members  of  the  Cabinet 
and  of  the  wife  and  daughter  of  the  Prime  Minister.  I 
used  to  know  them,"  she  said,  "and  it  was  embarrassing." 

Thus  the  revolution  proceeds.    For  that's  what  it  is. 

.  .  .  On  the  other  hand  the  existing  order  is  the 
most  skilfully  devised  machinery  for  perpetuating  itself 
that  has  ever  grown  up  among  civilized  men.  Did  you 
ever  see  a  London  directory?  It  hasn't  names  al- 
phabetically; but  one  section  is  "Tradesmen,"  another 
"The  City,"  etc.,  etc.,  and  another  "The  Court."  Any 
one  who  has  ever  been  presented  at  Court  is  in  the 
"Court"  section,  and  you  must  sometimes  look  in  several 
sections  to  find  a  man.  Yet  everybody  so  values  these 
distinctions  that  nobody  complains  of  the  inconvenience. 
When  the  Liberal  party  makes  Liberals  Peers  in  order  to 
have  Liberals  in  the  House  of  Lords,  lo!  they  soon  turn 
Conservative  after  they  get  there.  The  system  perpetu- 
ates itself  and  stifles  the  natural  desire  for  change  that 
most  men  in  a  state  of  nature  instinctively  desire  in  order 
to  assert  their  own  personalities.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  All  this  social  life  which  engages  us  at  this 
particular  season,  sets  a  man  to  thinking.  The  mass  of 


172       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS  OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

the  people  are  very  slow — almost  dull;  and  the  privileged 
are  most  firmly  entrenched.  The  really  alert  people  are 
the  aristocracy.  They  see  the  drift  of  events.  "What  is 
the  pleasantest  part  of  your  country  to  live  in?"  Dowa- 
ger Lady  X  asked  me  on  Sunday,  more  than  half  in  earn- 
est. "My  husband 's  ancestors  sat  in  the  House  of  Lords 
for  six  hundred  years.  My  son  sits  there  now — a  dummy. 
They  have  taken  all  power  from  the  Lords ;  they  are  taxing 
us  out  of  our  lands;  they  are  saving  the  monarchy  for 
destruction  last.  England  is  of  the  past — all  is  going. 
God  knows  what  is  coming."  .  .  . 

.  .  .  And  presently  the  presentations  come. 
Lord!  how  sensible  American  women  scramble  for  this 
privilege !  It  royally  fits  a  few  of  them.  Well,  I  've  made 
some  rules  about  presentations  myself,  since  it's  really 
a  sort  of  personal  perquisite  of  the  Ambassador.  One 
rule  is,  I  don't  present  any  but  handsome  women. 
Pretty  girls :  that 's  what  you  want  when  you  are  getting 
up  a  show.  Far  too  many  of  ours  come  here  and  marry 
Englishmen.  I  think  I  shall  make  another  rule  and  ex- 
act a  promise  that  after  presentation  they  shall  go  home. 
But  the  American  women  do  enliven  London.  .  .  . 

That  triumph  with  the  tariff  is  historic.  I  wrote  to  the 
President:  "Score  one!"  And  I  have  been  telling  the 
London  writers  on  big  subjects,  notably  the  editor  of  the 
Economist,  that  this  event,  so  quiet  and  undramatic, 
will  mark  a  new  epoch  in  the  trade  history  of  the  world. 

.  .  .  This  island  is  a  good  breeding  place  for  men 
whose  children  find  themselves  and  develop  into  real  men 
in  freer  lands.  All  that  is  needed  to  show  the  whole 
world  that  the  future  is  ours  is  just  this  sort  of  an  act  of 
self-confidence.  You  know  the  old  story  of  the  Negro  who 


ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   WAR  173 

saw  a  ghost — "Git  outen  de  way,  Mr.  Rabbit,  and  let 
somebody  come  who  kin  run!"  Score  one!  We're 
making  History,  and  these  people  here  know  it.  The 
trade  of  the  world,  or  as  much  of  it  as  is  profitable,  we 
may  take  as  we  will.  The  over-taxed,  under-productive, 
army-burdened  men  of  the  Old  World — alas!  I  read 
a  settled  melancholy  in  much  of  their  statesmanship  and 
in  more  of  their  literature.  The  most  cheerful  men  in 
official  life  here  are  the  High  Commissioners  of  Canada, 
Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  such  fellows  who  know  what 
the  English  race  is  doing  and  can  do  freed  from  uniforms 
and  heavy  taxes  and  class  feeling  and  such  like.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  The  two  things  that  this  island  has  of  eternal 
value  are  its  gardens  and  its  men.  Nature  sprinkles  it 
almost  every  day  and  holds  its  moisture  down  so  that 
every  inch  of  it  is  forever  green ;  and  somehow  men  thrive 
as  the  lawns  do — the  most  excellent  of  all  races  for 
progenitors.  You  and  I1  can  never  be  thankful  enough 
that  our  ancestors  came  of  this  stock.  Even  those  that 
have  stayed  have  cut  a  wide  swath,  and  they  wield  good 
scythes  yet.  But  I  have  moods  when  I  pity  them — for 
their  dependence,  for  instance,  on  a  navy  (2  keels  to  1) 
for  their  very  bread  and  meat.  They  frantically  resent 
conveniences.  They  build  their  great  law  court  building 
(the  architecture  ecclesiastical)  so  as  to  provide  an  en- 
trance hall  of  imposing  proportions  which  they  use  once  a 
year;  and  to  get  this  fine  hall  they  have  to  make  their 
court  rooms,  which  they  must  use  all  the  time,  dark  and 
small  and  inaccessible.  They  think  as  much  of  that  once- 
a-year  ceremony  of  opening  their  courts  as  they  think  of 
the  even  justice  that  they  dispense;  somehow  they  feel 
that  the  justice  depends  on  the  ceremony. 

JThis  is  from  a  letter  to  President  Wilson. 


174      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

This  moss  that  has  grown  all  over  their  lives  (some  of 
it  very  pretty  and  most  of  it  very  comfortable — it's  soft 
and  warm)  is  of  no  great  consequence — except  that  they 
think  they'd  die  if  it  were  removed.  And  this  state  of 
mind  gives  us  a  good  key  to  their  character  and  habits. 

What  are  we  going  to  do  with  this  England  and  this 
Empire,  presently,  when  economic  forces  unmistakably 
put  the  leadership  of  the  race  in  our  hands?  How  can 
we  lead  it  and  use  it  for  the  highest  purposes  of  the  world 
and  of  democracy?  We  can  do  what  we  like  if  we  go 
about  it  heartily  and  with  good  manners  (any  man  prefers 
to  yield  to  a  gentleman  rather  than  to  a  rustic)  and  throw 
away — gradually — our  isolating  fears  and  alternate  boast- 
ing and  bashfulness.  "What  do  we  most  need  to  learn 
from  you?"  I  asked  a  gentle  and  bejewelled  nobleman 
the  other  Sunday,  in  a  country  garden  that  invited  con- 
fidences. "If  I  may  speak  without  offence,  modesty." 
A  commoner  in  the  company,  who  had  seen  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  laughed,  and  said:  "No;  see  your  chance  and 
take  it:  that's  what  we  did  in  the  years  when  we  made 
the  world's  history."  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  VI 
POLICY  "AND  "PRINCIPLE "IN  MEXICO 


THE  last  days  of  February,  1913,  witnessed  one  of 
those  sanguinary  scenes  in  Mexico  which  for  genera- 
tions had  accompanied  changes  in  the  government  of  that 
distracted  country.  A  group  of  revolutionists  assailed 
the  feeble  power  of  Francisco  Madero  and  virtually  im- 
prisoned that  executive  and  his  forces  in  the  Presidential 
Palace.  The  Mexican  army,  whose  most  influential 
officers  were  General  Blanquet  and  General  Victoriano 
Huerta,  was  hastily  summoned  to  the  rescue  of  the  Gov- 
ernment; instead  of  relieving  the  besieged  officials,  how- 
ever, these  generals  turned  their  guns  upon  them,  and  so 
assured  the  success  of  the  uprising.  The  speedy  outcome 
of  these  transactions  was  the  assassination  of  President 
Madero  and  the  seizure  of  the  Presidency  by  General 
Huerta.  Another  outcome  was  the  presentation  to  Page 
of  one  of  the  most  delicate  problems  in  the  history  of 
Anglo-American  relations. 

At  almost  any  other  time  this  change  in  the  Mexican 
succession  would  have  caused  only  a  momentary  disturb- 
ance. There  was  nothing  new  in  the  violent  overthrow  of 
government  in  Latin- America ;  in  Mexico  itself  no  pres- 
ident had  ever  risen  to  power  except  by  revolution.  The 
career  of  Porfirio  Diaz,  who  had  maintained  his  author- 
ity for  a  third  of  a  century,  had  somewhat  obscured  this 
fundamental  fact  in  Mexican  politics,  but  Diaz  had  domi- 
nated Mexico  for  seven  presidential  terms,  not  because  his 

175 


176       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

methods  differed  from  the  accepted  methods  of  his  country, 
but  because  he  was  himself  an  executive  of  great  force  and 
a  statesman  of  genius,  and  could  successfully  hold  his  own 
against  any  aspiring  antagonist.  The  civilized  world, 
including  the  United  States,  had  long  since  become  rec- 
onciled to  this  situation  as  almost  a  normal  one.  In 
recognizing  momentarily  successful  adventurers,  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  had  never  considered  such 
details  as  justice  or  constitutionalism :  the  legality  of  the 
presidential  title  had  never  been  the  point  at  issue; 
the  only  question  involved  was  whether  the  successful 
aspirant  actually  controlled  the  country,  whether  he  had 
established  a  state  of  affairs  that  approximately  repre- 
sented order,  and  whether  he  could  be  depended  upon  to 
protect  life  and  property.  During  the  long  dictatorship  of 
Porfirio  Diaz,  however,  certain  events  had  taken  place 
which  had  awakened  the  minds  of  Americans  to  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  new  international  relationship  with  all  back- 
ward peoples.  The  consequences  of  the  Spanish  War 
had  profoundly  impressed  Page.  This  conflict  had  left 
the  United  States  a  new  problem  in  Cuba  and  the  Philip- 
pines. Under  the  principles  that  for  generations  had  gov- 
erned the  Old  World  there  would  have  been  no  particu- 
lar difficulty  in  meeting  this  problem.  The  United  States 
would  have  candidly  annexed  the  islands,  and  exploited 
their  resources  and  their  peoples;  we  should  have  con- 
cerned ourselves  little  about  any  duties  that  might  be 
owed  to  the  several  millions  of  human  beings  who  in- 
habited them.  Indeed,  what  other  alternatives  were 
there? 

One  was  to  hand  the  possessions  back  to  Spain, 
who  in  a  four  hundred  years'  experiment  had  demon- 
strated her  unfitness  to  govern  them ;  another  was  to  give 
the  islands  their  independence,  which  would  have  meant 


. . 


POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO        177 


merely  an  indefinite  continuance  of  anarchy.  It  is  one 
of  the  greatest  triumphs  of  American  statesmanship  that 
it  discovered  a  more  satisfactory  solution.  Essentially, 
the  new  plan  was  to  establish  in  these  undeveloped 
and  politically  undisciplined  regions  the  fundamental 
conditions  that  may  make  possible  the  ultimate  creation  of 
democratic,  self-governing  states.  It  was  recognized  that 
constitutions  and  election  ballots  in  themselves  did  not 
necessarily  imply  a  democratic  order.  Before  these  there 
must  come  other  things  that  were  far  more  important,  such 
as  popular  education,  scientific  agriculture,  sanitation,  pub- 
lic highways,  railroads,  and  the  development  of  the  re- 
sources of  nature.  If  the  backward  peoples  of  the  world 
could  be  schooled  in  such  a  preliminary  apprenticeship, 
the  time  might  come  when  the  intelligence  and  the  con- 
science of  the  masses  would  be  so  enlightened  that  they 
could  be  trusted  with  independence.  The  labour  of 
Leonard  Wood  in  Cuba,  and  of  other  Americans  in  the 
Philippines,  had  apparently  pointed  the  way  to  the  only 
treatment  of  such  peoples  that  was  just  to  them  and 
safe  for  mankind. 

With  the  experience  of  Cuba  and  the  Philippines  as 
a  guide,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  situation  in  Mexico 
appealed  to  many  Americans  as  opening  a  similar  op- 
portunity to  the  United  States.  The  two  facts  that  out- 
stood  all  others  were  that  Mexico,  in  her  existing  condition 
of  popular  ignorance,  could  not  govern  herself,  and  that 
the  twentieth  century  could  not  accept  indefinitely  a 
condition  of  disorder  and  bloodshed  that  had  apparently 
satisfied  the  nineteenth.  The  basic  difficulty  in  this 
American  republic  was  one  of  race  and  of  national 
character.  The  fact  that  was  constantly  overlooked  was 
that  Mexico  was  not  a  Caucasian  country :  it  was  a  great 
shambling  Indian  Republic.  Of  its  15,000,000  people  less 


178      THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

than  3,000,000  were  of  unmixed  white  blood,  about  35  per 
cent,  were  pure  Indian,  and  the  rest  represented  varying 
mixtures  of  white  and  aboriginal  stock.  The  masses  had 
advanced  little  in  civilization  since  the  days  of  Cortez. 
Eighty  per  cent,  were  illiterate;  their  lives  for  the  most 
part  were  a  dull  and  squalid  routine;  protection  against 
disease  was  unknown;  the  agricultural  methods  were 
most  primitive;  the  larger  number  still  spoke  the  native 
dialects  which  had  been  used  in  the  days  of  Montezuma ; 
and  over  good  stretches  of  the  country  the  old  tribal 
regime  still  represented  the  only  form  of  political  organi- 
zation. The  one  encouraging  feature  was  that  these 
Mexican  Indians,  backward  as  they  might  be,  were  far 
superior  to  the  other  native  tribes  of  the  North  Ameri- 
can Continent;  in  ancient  times,  they  had  developed 
a  state  of  society  far  superior  to  that  of  the  traditional 
Redskin.  Nevertheless,  it  was  true  that  the  progress  of 
Mexico  in  the  preceding  fifty  years  had  been  due  almost  en- 
tirely to  foreign  enterprise.  By  1913,  about  75,000  Ameri- 
cans were  living  in  Mexico  as  miners,  engineers,  merchants, 
and  agriculturists;  American  investments  amounted  to 
about  $1,200,000,000— a  larger  sum  than  that  of  all  the 
other  foreigners  combined .  Though  the  work  of  European 
countries,  particularly  Great  Britain,  was  important,  yet 
Mexico  was  practically  an  economic  colony  of  the  United 
States.  Most  observers  agree  that  these  foreign  activities 
had  not  only  profited  the  foreigners,  but  that  they  had 
greatly  benefited  the  Mexicans  themselves.  The  enter- 
prise of  Americans  had  disclosed  enormous  riches,  had 
given  hundreds  of  thousands  employment  at  very  high 
wages,  had  built  up  new  Mexican  towns  on  modern  Amer- 
ican lines,  had  extended  the  American  railway  system 
over  a  large  part  of  the  land,  and  had  developed  street 
railways,  electric  lighting,  and  other  modern  necessities 


POLICY       AND       PRINCIPLE       IN   MEXICO  179 

in  all  sections  of  the  Republic.  The  opening  up  of  Mexi- 
can oil  resources  was  perhaps  the  most  typical  of  these 
achievements,  as  it  was  certainly  the  most  adventurous. 
Americans  had  created  this,  perhaps  the  greatest  of  Mexi- 
can industries,  and  in  1913,  these  Americans  owned  nearly 
80  per  cent,  of  Mexican  oil.  Their  success  had  persuaded 
several  Englishmen,  the  best  known  of  whom  was  Lord 
Cowdray,  to  enter  this  same  field.  The  activities  of  the 
Americans  and  the  British  in  oil  had  an  historic  signifi- 
cance which  was  not  foreseen  in  1913,  but  which  assumed 
the  greatest  importance  in  the  World  War;  for  the  oil 
drawn  from  these  Mexican  fields  largely  supplied  the 
Allied  fleets  and  thus  became  an  important  element  in  the 
defeat  of  the  Central  Powers.  In  1913,  however,  Amer- 
ican and  British  oil  operators  were  objects  of  general  sus- 
picion in  both  continents.  They  were  accused  of  partici- 
pating too  actively  in  Mexican  politics  and  there  were 
those  who  even  held  them  responsible  for  the  revolution- 
ary condition  of  the  country.  One  picturesque  legend  in- 
sisted that  the  American  oil  interests  looked  with  jealous 
hostility  upon  the  great  favours  shown  by  the  Diaz  Ad- 
ministration to  Lord  Cowdray 's  company,  and  that  they 
had  instigated  the  Madero  revolution  in  order  to  put  in 
power  politicians  who  would  be  more  friendly  to  them- 
selves. The  inevitable  complement  to  this  interpretation 
of  events  was  a  prevailing  suspicion  that  the  Cowdray 
interests  had  promoted  the  Huerta  revolt  in  order  to  turn 
the  tables  on  "Standard  Oil,"  to  make  safe  the  "conces- 
sions" already  obtained  from  Diaz  and  to  obtain  still 
more  from  the  new  Mexican  dictator. 

To  determine  the  truth  in  all  these  allegations,  which 
were  freely  printed  in  the  American  press  of  the  time, 
would  demand  more  facts  than  are  at  present  available; 
yet  it  is  clear  that  these  oil  and  other  "concessions"  pre- 


180       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

sented  the  perpetual  Mexican  problem  in  a  new  and  diffi- 
cult light.  The  Wilson  Administration  came  into  power 
a  few  days  after  Huerta  had  seized  the  Mexican  Govern- 
ment. The  first  difficulty  presented  to  the  State  Depart- 
ment was  to  determine  its  attitude  toward  this  usurper. 

A  few  days  after  President  Wilson's  inauguration  Mr. 
Irwin  Laughlin,  then  Charge  d'Affaires  in  London — this 
was  several  weeks  before  Page's  arrival — was  instructed 
>  to  ask  the  British  Foreign  Office  what  its  attitude  would 
be  in  regard  to  the  recognition  of  President  Huerta.  Mr. 
Laughlin  informed  the  Foreign  Office  that  he  was  not  in- 
structed that  the  United  States  had  decided  on  any  policy, 
but  that  he  felt  sure  it  would  be  to  the  advantage  of  both 
countries  to  follow  the  same  line.  The  query  was  not  an 
informal  one ;  it  was  made  in  definite  obedience  to  instruc- 
/  tions  and  was  intended  to  elicit  a  formal  commitment. 
The  unequivocal  answer  that  Mr.  Laughlin  received  was 
that  the  British  Government  would  not  recognize  Huerta, 
either  formally  or  tacitly. 

Mr.  Laughlin  sent  his  message  immediately  to  Washing- 
ton, where  it  apparently  made  a  favourable  impression. 
The  Administration  then  let  it  be  known  that  the  United 
States  would  not  recognize  the  new  Mexican  regime. 
Whether  Mr.  Wilson  would  at  this  time  have  taken  such  a 
position,  irrespective  of  the  British  attitude,  is  not  known, 
but  at  this  stage  of  the  proceedings  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  were  standing  side  by  side. 

About  three  weeks  afterward  Mr.  Laughlin  heard  that 
the  British  Foreign  Office  was  about  to  recognize  Huerta. 
Naturally  the  report  astonished  him;  he  at  once  called 
again  on  the  Foreign  Office,  taking  with  him  the  despatch 
that  he  had  recently  sent  to  Washington.  Why  had  the 
British  Government  recognized  Huerta  when  it  had  given 
definite  assurances  to  Washington  that  it  had  no  intention 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO        181 

of  doing  so?  The  outcome  of  the  affair  was  that  Sir  Cecil 
Spring  Rice,  British  Ambassador  in  Washington,  was  in- 
structed to  inform  the  State  Department  that  Great 
Britain  had  changed  its  mind.  France,  Germany,  Spain, 
and  most  other  governments  followed  the  British  example 
in  recognizing  the  new  President  of  Mexico. 

It  is  thus  apparent  that  the  initial  mistake  in  the  Huerta 
affair  was  made  by  Great  Britain.  Its  action  produced 
the  most  unpleasant  impression  upon  the  new  Adminis- 
tration. Mr.  Wilson,  Mr.  Bryan,  and  their  associates  in 
the  cabinet  easily  found  an  explanation  that  was  sat- 
isfactory to  themselves  and  to  the  political  enthusiasms 
upon  which  they  had  come  into  power.  They  believed 
that  the  sudden  change  in  the  British  attitude  was  the  re- 
sult of  pressure  from  British  commercial  interests  which 
hoped  to  profit  from  the  Huerta  influence.  Lord  Cow- 
dray  was  a  rich  and  powerful  Liberal;  he  had  great  con- 
cessions in  Mexico  which  had  been  obtained  from  Presi- 
dent Diaz;  it  was  known  that  Huerta  aimed  to  make  his 
dictatorship  a  continuation  of  that  of  Diaz,  to  rule  Mexico 
as  Diaz  had  ruled  it,  that  is,  by  force,  and  to  extend  a 
welcoming  hand  to  foreign  capitalists.  An  important  con- 
sideration was  that  the  British  Navy  had  a  contract  with 
the  Cowdray  Company  for  oil,  which  was  rapidly  be- 
coming indispensable  as  a  fuel  for  warships,  and  this  fact 
necessarily  made  the  British  Government  almost  a  cham- 
pion of  the  Cowdray  interests.  It  was  not  necessary  to 
believe  all  the  rumours  that  were  then  afloat  in  the  Amer- 
ican press  to  conclude  that  a  Huerta  administration  would 
be  far  more  acceptable  to  the  Cowdray  Company  than 
any  headed  by  one  of  the  military  chieftains  who  were 
then  disputing  the  control  of  Mexico.  Mr.  Wilson  and 
Mr.  Bryan  believed  that  these  events  proved  that  certain 
"interests,"  similar  to  the  "interests"  which,  in  their  view, 


182       THE    LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

had  exercised  so  baleful  an  influence  on  American  politics, 
were  also  active  in  Great  Britain.  The  Wilson  election 
in  1912  had  been  a  protest  against  the  dominance  of  "Wall 
Street"  in  American  politics;  Mr.  Bryan's  political  stock- 
in-trade  for  a  generation  had  consisted  of  little  except  a 
campaign  against  these  forces;  naturally,  therefore,  the 
suspicion  that  Great  Britain  was  giving  way  to  a  British 
"  Standard  Oil "  was  enough  to  arm  these  statesmen 
against  the  Huerta  policy,  and  to  intensify  that  profound 
dislike  of  Huerta  himself  that  was  soon  to  become  al- 
most an  obsession. 

With  this  as  a  starting  point  President  Wilson  pres- 
ently formulated  an  entirely  new  principle  for  dealing  with 
Latin-American  republics.  There  could  be  no  perma- 
nent order  in  these  turbulent  countries  and  nothing  ap- 
proaching a  democratic  system  until  the  habit  of  revolu- 
/  tion  should  be  checked.  One  of  the  greatest  encourage- 
ments to  revolution,  said  the  President,  was  the  willingness 
of  foreign  governments  to  recognize  any  politician  who 
succeeded  in  seizing  the  executive  power.  He  therefore 
believed  that  a  refusal  to  recognize  any  government 
"founded  upon  violence  "  would  exercise  a  wholesome  in- 
fluence in  checking  this  national  habit;  if  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States  and  the  other  powers  would  set 
the  example  by  refusing  to  have  any  diplomatic  dealings 
with  General  Huerta,  such  an  unfriendly  attitude  would 
discourage  other  forceful  intriguers  from  attempting  to 
repeat  his  experiment.  The  result  would  be  that  the 
decent  elements  in  Mexico  and  other  Latin-American 
countries  would  at  last  assert  themselves,  establish  a 
constitutional  system,  and  select  their  governments  by 
constitutional  means.  At  the  bottom  of  the  whole  busi- 
ness were,  in  the  President's  and  Mr.  Bryan's  opinion, 
the  "concession"  seekers,  the  "exploiters,"  who  were  con- 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO        183 

stantly  obtaining  advantages  at  the  hands  of  these 
corrupt  governments  and  constantly  stirring  up  revolu- 
tions for  their  financial  profit.  The  time  had  now  come  to 
end  the  whole  miserable  business.  "We  are  closing  one 
chapter  in  the  history  of  the  world,"  said  Mr.  Wilson, 
"and  opening  another  of  unimaginable  significance. 
.  .  .  It  is  a  very  perilous  thing  to  determine  the  for- 
eign policy  of  a  nation  in  the  terms  of  material  interests. 
.  .  .  We  have  seen  such  material  interests  threaten 
constitutional  freedom  in  the  United  States.  Therefore 
we  will  now  know  how  to  sympathize  with  those  in  the 
rest  of  America  who  have  to  contend  with  such  powers, 
not  only  within  their  borders,  but  from  outside  their  bor- 
ders." ' 

In  this  way  General  Huerta,  who,  in  his  own  eyes,  was 
merely  another  in  the  long  succession  of  Mexican  revolu- 
tionary chieftains,  was  translated  into  an  epochal  figure 
in  the  history  of  American  foreign  policy;  he  became  a 
symbol  in  Mr.  Wilson's  new  scheme  of  things — the  rep- 
resentative of  the  order  which  was  to  come  to  an  end,  the 
man  who,  all  unwittingly,  was  to  point  the  new  way  not 
only  in  Mexico,  but  in  all  Latin-American  countries. 
The  first  diplomatic  task  imposed  upon  Page  therefore 
was  one  that  would  have  dismayed  a  more  experienced 
ambassador.  This  was  to  persuade  Great  Britain  to 
retrace  its  steps,  to  withdraw  its  recognition  of  Huerta, 
and  to  join  hands  with  the  United  States  in  bringing 
about  his  downfall.  The  new  ambassador  sympathized 
with  Mr.  Wilson's  ideas  to  a  certain  extent;  the  point 
at  which  he  parted  company  with  the  President's  Mex- 
ican policy  will  appear  in  due  course.  He  therefore  began 
zealously  to  preach  the  new  Latin-American  doctrine  to 
the  British  Foreign  Office,  with  results  that  appear  in  his 
letters  of  this  period. 


184       THE   LIFE  AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

To  the  President 

6  Grosvenor  Square,  London, 

Friday  night,  October  24, 1913. 
>JL     DEAR  MR.  PRESIDENT: 

In  this  wretched  Mexican  business,  about  which  I  have 
read  columns  and  columns  and  columns  of  comment  these 
two  days  and  turned  every  conceivable  proposition  back 
and  forth  in  my  mind — in  this  whole  wretched  waste  of 
comment,  I  have  not  seen  even  an  allusion  to  any  moral 
principle  involved  nor  a  word  of  concern  about  the  Mexi- 
ycan  people.  It  is  all  about  who  is  the  stronger,  Huerta 
or  some  other  bandit,  and  about  the  necessity  of  order 
for  the  sake  of  financial  interests.  Nobody  recalls  our 
action  in  giving  Cuba  to  the  Cubans  or  our  pledge  to  the 
people  of  the  Philippine  Islands.  But  there  is  reference 
to  the  influence  of  Standard  Oil  in  the  American  policy. 
This  illustrates  the  complete  divorce  of  European  politics 
J  from  fundamental  morals,  and  it  shocks  even  a  man  who 
before  knew  of  this  divorce. 

In  my  last  talk  with  Sir  Edward  Grey  I  drove  this  home 
by  emphasizing  strongly  the  impossibility  of  your  playing 
primary  heed  to  any  American  business  interest  in  Mexico 
— even  the  immorality  of  your  doing  so ;  there  are  many 
things  that  come  before  business  and  there  are  some  things 
that  come  before  order.  I  used  American  business  inter- 
ests because  I  couldn't  speak  openly  of  British  business 
interests  and  his  Government.  I  am  sure  he  saw  the 
obvious  inference.  But  not  even  from  him  came  a  word 
about  the  moral  foundation  of  government  or  about  the 
welfare  of  the  Mexican  people.  These  are  not  in  the 
European  governing  vocabulary. 

I  have  been  trying  to  find  a  way  to  help  this  Govern- 
ment to  wake  up  to  the  effect  of  its  pro-Huerta  position 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE  '  IN  MEXICO        185 

and  to  give  them  a  chance  to  refrain  from  repeating  that 
mistake — and  to  save  their  faces;  and  I  have  telegraphed 
one  plan  to  Mr.  Bryan  to-day.  I  think  they  ought  now 
to  be  forced  to  show  their  hand  without  the  possibility  of 
evasion.  They  will  not  risk  losing  our  good-will — if  it 
seem  wise  to  you  to  put  them  to  a  square  test. 

It 's  a  wretched  business,  and  the  sordid  level  of  Euro- 
pean statecraft  is  sad. 

I  ran  across  the  Prime  Minister  at  the  royal  wedding 
reception1  the  other  day. 

"What  do  you  infer  from  the  latest  news  from  Mexico?  " 
he  asked. 

"Several  things." 

"Teh1  me  the  most  important  inference  you  draw." 

"Well,  the  danger  of  prematurely  making  up  one's 
mind  about  a  Mexican  adventurer." 

"Ah!"  and  he  moved  on. 

Very  heartily  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

To  the  President 

London,  Sunday,  Nov.  16,  1913. 

.  .  .  About  the  obligations  and  inferences  of  de- 
mocracy, they  are  dense.  They  don't  really  believe  in  it; 
and  they  are  slow  to  see  what  good  will  come  of  ousting 
Huerta  unless  we  know  beforehand  who  will  succeed 
him.  Sir  Edward  Grey  is  not  dense,  but  in  this  matter 
even  he  is  slow  fully  to  understand.  The  Lord  knows 
I've  told  him  plainly  over  and  over  again  and,  I  fear,  even 
preached  to  him.  At  first  he  couldn't  see  the  practical 
nature  of  so  "  idealistic  "  a  programme.  I  explained  to 
him  how  the  immemorial  "  policy  "  that  we  all  followed  of 

1Prince  Arthur  of  Connaught  and  the  Duchess  of  Fife  were  married  in  the  Chapel 
Royal,  October  16,  1913. 


186       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

recognizing  momentarily  successful  adventurers  in  Latin- 
America  had  put  a  premium  on  revolution;  that  you  had 
tj\  found  something  better  than  a  policy,  namely,  a  principle; 
|  that  policies  change,  but  principles  do  not;  that  he  need 
not  be  greatly  concerned  about  the  successor  to  Huerta; 
that  this  is  primarily  and  ultimately  an  American  prob- 
lem; that  Great  Britain's  interest  being  only  commercial 
is  far  less  than  the  interest  of  the  United  States,  which 
is  commercial  and  also  ethical;  and  so  on  and  so  on.  His 
sympathies  and  his  friendliness  are  all  right.  But 
Egypt  and  India  were  in  his  mind.  He  confessed  to  me 
that  he  was  much  impressed — "if  you  can  carry  it 
through."  Many  men  are  seeing  the  new  idea  (I  wonder 
if  you  are  conscious  how  new  it  is  and  how  incredible  to 
the  Old  World  mind?)  and  they  express  the  greatest  and 
sincerest  admiration  for  "your  brave  new  President"; 
and  a  wave  of  friendliness  to  the  United  States  swept  over 
the  Kingdom  when  the  Government  took  its  open  stand. 
At  the  annual  dinner  of  the  oldest  and  richest  of  the 
merchants'  guilds  at  which  they  invited  me  to  respond 
to  a  toast  the  other  night  they  proposed  your  health  most 
heartily  and,  when  I  arose,  they  cheered  longer  and  louder 
than  I  had  before  heard  men  cheer  in  this  kingdom. 
There  is,  I  am  sure,  more  enthusiasm  for  the  United 
States  here,  by  far,  than  for  England  in  the  United 
States.  They  are  simply  dense  about  any  sort  of  gov- 
ernment but  their  own — particularly  dense  about  the 
application  of  democracy  to  "dependencies"  and  inferior 
peoples.  I  have  a  neighbour  who  spent  many  years  as 
an  administrator  in  India.  He  has  talked  me  deaf  about 
the  inevitable  failure  of  this  "idealistic"  Mexican  pro- 
gramme. He  is  wholly  friendly  and  wholly  incredulous. 
And  for  old-time  Toryism  gone  to  seed  commend  me  to 
the  Spectator.  Not  a  glimmering  of  the  idea  has  entered 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO         187 

Strachey's  head.  The  Times,  however,  now  sees  it  pretty 
clearly.  I  spent  Sunday  a  few  weeks  ago  with  two  of  its 
editors  in  the  country,  and  they  have  come  to  see  me 
several  times  since  and  written  fairly  good  "leaders" 
out  of  my  conversation  with  them.  So  much  for  this 
head.  For  the  moment  at  least  that  is  satisfactory.  You 
must  not  forget  that  they  can't  all  at  once  take  it  in,  for 
they  do  not  really  know  what  democracy  is  or  whither  it 
leads  and  at  bottom  they  do  not  really  believe  in  it  as  a 
scheme  of  government — not  even  this  Liberal  Cabinet. 

The  British  concern  for  commercial  interests,  which 
never  sleeps,  will,  I  fear,  come  up  continuously.  But 
we  shall  simply  do  justice  and  stand  firm,  when  this 
phase  of  the  subject  comes  forward. 

It's  amusing,  when  you  forget  its  sadness,  that  their 
first  impulse  is  to  regard  an  unselfish  international  act 
as  what  Cecil  Rhodes  called  the  English  "unctuous  recti- 
tude." But  this  experience  that  we  are  having  with 
them  will  be  worth  much  in  future  dealings.  They  al- 
ready feel  very  clearly  that  a  different  hand  has  the  helm 
in  Washington;  and  we  can  drive  them  hard,  if  need  be, 
for  they  will  not  forfeit  our  friendship. 

It  is  worth  something  to  discover  that  Downing  Street 
makes  many  mistakes.  Infallibility  dwells  a  long  way 
from  them.  In  this  matter  they  have  made  two  terrible 
blunders — the  recognition  of  Huerta  (they  know  that 
now)  and  the  sending  of  Garden  (they  may  already  sus- 
pect that:  they'll  know  it  presently). 

Yours  always  faithfully, 
WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

P.  S.     By  Jove,  I  didn't  know  that  I'd  ever  have  to  put 
the  British  Government  through  an  elementary  course  in 
Democracy ! 
To  the  President. 


188       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Occasionally  Page  discussed  with  Sir  Edward  Grey  an 
alternative  American  pob'cy  which  was  in  the  minds  of 
most  people  at  that  time : 

To  the  President 

.  .  .  The  foregoing  I  wrote  before  this  Mexican 
business  took  its  present  place.  I  can't  get  away  from 
the  feeling  that  the  English  simply  do  not  and  will  not 
believe  in  any  unselfish  public  action — further  than  the 
keeping  of  order.  They  have  a  mania  for  order,  sheer 
order,  order  for  the  sake  of  order.  They  can't  see  how 
anything  can  come  in  any  one's  thought  before  order  or 
how  anything  need  come  afterward.  Even  Sir  Edward 
Grey  jocularly  ran  me  across  our  history  with  questions 
like  this: 

"Suppose  you  have  to  intervene,  what  then?" 
"Make  'em  vote  and  live  by  their  decisions." 
"But  suppose  they  will  not  so  live?" 
"We'll  go  in  again  and  make  'em  vote  again." 
"And  keep  this  up  200  years?"  asked  he. 
"Yes,"  said  I.     "The  United  States  will  be  here  two 
hundred  years  and  it  can  continue  to  shoot  men  for  that 
little  space  till  they  learn  to  vote  and  to  rule  themselves." 
I  have  never  seen  him  laugh  so  heartily.     Shooting 
men  into  self-government!     Shooting  them  into  order- 
liness— he  comprehends  that;  and  that's  all  right.     But 
that's  as  far  as  his  habit  of  mind  goes.     At  Sheffield  last 
night,  when  I  had  to  make  a  speech,  I  explained  "ideal- 
ism" (they  always  quote  it)  in  Government.     They  lis- 
tened attentively  and  even  eagerly.     Then  they  came  up 
and  asked  if  I  really  meant  that  Government  should  con- 
cern itself  with  idealistic  things — beyond  keeping  order. 
Ought  they  to  do  so  in  India? — I  assure  you  they  don't 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO        189 

1  think  beyond  order.     A  nigger  lynched  in  Mississippi 
i  offends  them  more  than  a  tyrant  in  Mexico. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

London,  November  2, 1913. 
DEAR  HOUSE: 

I've  been  writing  to  the  President  that  the  Englishman 
has  a  mania  for  order,  order  for  order's  sake,  and  for — 
trade.  He  has  reduced  a  large  part  of  the  world  to  order. 
He  is  the  best  policeman  in  creation;  and — he  has  the 
policeman's  ethics!  Talk  to  him  about  character  as  a 
basis  of  government  or  about  a  moral  basis  of  government 
in  any  outlying  country,  he'll  think  you  daft.  Bah! 
what  matter  who  governs  or  how  he  governs  or  where  he 
got  his  authority  or  how,  so  long  as  he  keeps  order.  He 
won't  see  anything  else.  The  lesson  of  our  dealing  with 
Cuba  is  lost  on  him.  He  doesn't  believe  that.  We  may 
bring  this  Government  in  line  with  us  on  Mexico.  But 
in  this  case  and  in  general,  the  moral  uplift  of  government 
must  be  forced  by  us — I  mean  government  in  outlying 
countries. 

Mexico  is  only  part  of  Central  America,  and  the  only 
way  we  can  ever  forge  a  Central  and  South  American 
policy  that  will  endure  is  this  way,  precisely,  by  saying 
that  your  momentarily  successful  adventurer  can't  count 
on  us  anywhere ;  the  man  that  rules  must  govern  for  the 
governed.  Then  we  have  a  policy;  and  nobody  else  has 
that  policy.  This  Mexican  business  is  worth  worlds  to 
us — to  establish  this. 

We  may  have  a  diplomatic  fight  here;  and  I'm  ready! 
Very  ready  on  this,  for  its  own  sake  and  for  reasons  that 
follow,  to  wit: 

Extraordinary  and  sincere  and  profound  as  is  the  re- 
spect of  the  English  for  the  American  people,  they  hold 


190       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

the  American  Government  in  contempt.  It  shifts  and 
doesn't  keep  its  treaty,  etc.,  etc. — They  are  right,  too. 
But  they  need  to  feel  the  hand  that  now  has  the  helm. 

But  one  or  two  things  have  first  to  be  got  out  of  the 
way.  That  Panama  tolls  is  the  worst.  We  are  dead 
wrong  in  that,  as  we  are  dead  right  on  the  Mexican 
matter.  If  it  were  possible  (I  don't  know  that  it  is)  for 
the  President  to  say  (quietly,  not  openly)  that  he  agrees 
with  us — if  he  do — then  the  field  would  be  open  for  a  fight 
on  Mexico ;  and  the  reinforcement  of  our  position  would 
be  incalculable. 

Then  we  need  in  Washington  some  sort  of  Bureau  or 
Master  of  Courtesies  for  the  Government,  to  do  and  to 
permit  us  to  do  those  little  courtesies  that  the  English 
spend  half  their  time  in  doing — this  in  the  course  of  our 
everyday  life  and  intercourse.  For  example:  When  I  was 
instructed  to  inform  this  Government  that  our  fleet  would 
go  to  the  Mediterranean,  I  was  instructed  also  to  say  that 
they  mustn't  trouble  to  welcome  us — don't  pay  no  'ten- 
tion  to  us!  Well,  that's  what  they  live  for  in  times  of 
peace — ceremonies.  We  come  along  and  say,  "We're 
comin'  but,  hell!  don't  kick  up  no  fuss  over  us,  we're  from 
Missouri,  we  are!"  And  the  Briton  shrugs  his  shoulders 
and  says,  "Boor!"  These  things  are  happening  all  the 
time.  Of  course  no  one  nor  a  dozen  nor  a  hundred  count; 
but  generations  of  'em  have  counted  badly.  A  Govern- 
ment without  manners. 

If  I  could  outdo  these  folk  at  their  game  of  courtesy, 
and  could  keep  our  treaty  faith  with  'em,  then  I  could  lick 
'em  into  the  next  century  on  the  moral  aspects  of  the 
Mexican  Government,  and  make  'em  look  up  and  salute 
every  time  the  American  Government  is  mentioned. 
See? — Is  there  any  hope? — Such  is  the  job  exactly.  And 
you  know  what  it  would  lead  to — even  in  our  lifetime — 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO         191 

to  the  leadership  of  the  world:  and  we  should  presently  be 
considering  how  we  may  best  use  the  British  fleet,  the    ^^ 
British  Empire,  and  the  English  race  for  the  betterment 
of  mankind. 

Yours  eagerly, 

W.  H.  P. 

A  word  of  caution  is  necessary  to  understand  Page's 
references  to  the  British  democracy.  That  the  parliamen- 
tary system  is  democratic  in  the  sense  that  it  is  respon- 
sive to  public  opinion  he  would  have  been  the  first  to 
admit.  That  Great  Britain  is  a  democracy  in  the  sense 
that  the  suffrage  is  general  is  also  apparent.  But,  in 
these  reflections  on  the  British  commonwealth,  the  Am- 
bassador was  thinking  of  his  old  familiar  figure,  the 
"  Forgotten  Man"  —the  neglected  man,  woman,  and  child 
of  the  masses.  In  an  address  delivered,  in  June,  1914, 
before  the  Royal  Institution  of  Great  Britain,  Page  gave 
what  he  regarded  as  the  definition  of  the  American 
ideal.  "The  fundamental  article  in  the  creed  of  the 
American  democracy — you  may  call  it  the  fundamental 
dogma  if  you  like — is  the  unchanging  and  unchangeable 
resolve  that  every  human  being  shall  have  his  opportunity 
for  his  utmost  development — his  chance  to  become  and 
to  do  the  best  that  he  can."  Democracy  is  not  only  a 
system  of  government — "it  is  a  scheme  of  society." 
Every  citizen  must  have  not  only  the  suffrage,  he  must 
likewise  enjoy  the  same  advantages  as  his  neighbour  for 
education,  for  social  opportunity,  for  good  health,  for 
success  in  agriculture,  manufacture,  finance,  and  business 
and  professional  life.  The  country  that  most  success- 
fully opened  all  these  avenues  to  every  boy  or  girl,  ex- 
clusively on  individual  merit,  was  in  Page's  view  the  most 
democratic.  He  believed  that  the  United  States  did  this 


192       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

more  completely  than  Great  Britain  or  any  other  country ; 
and  therefore  he  believed  that  we  were  far  more  demo- 
cratic. He  had  not  found  in  other  countries  the  splendid 
phenomenon  presented  by  America's  great  agricultural 
region.  "The  most  striking  single  fact  about  the  United 
States  is,  I  think,  this  spectacle,  which,  so  far  as  I  know, 
is  new  in  the  world:  On  that  great  agricultural  area  are 
about  seven  million  farms  of  an  average  size  of  about  140 
acres,  most  of  which  are  tilled  by  the  owners  themselves, 
a  population  that  varies  greatly,  of  course,  in  its  thrift 
and  efficiency,  but  most  of  which  is  well  housed,  in  houses 
they  themselves  own,  well  clad,  well  fed,  and  a  population 
that  trains  practically  all  its  children  in  schools  main- 
tained by  public  taxation."  It  was  some  such  vision  as 
this  that  Page  hoped  to  see  realized  ultimately  in  Mex- 
ico. And  some  such  development  as  this  would  make 
Mexico  a  democracy.  It  was  his  difficulty  in  making 
the  British  see  the  Mexican  problem  in  this  light  that 
persuaded  him  that,  in  this  comprehensive  meaning  of 
the  word,  the  democratic  ideal  had  made  an  inappreciable 
progress  in  Europe — and  even  in  Great  Britain  itself. 

ii 

These  letters  are  printed  somewhat  out  of  their  chrono- 
logical order  because  they  picture  definitely  the  two 
opposing  viewpoints  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States  on  Mexico  and  Latin-America  generally.  Here, 
then,  was  the  sharp  issue  drawn  between  the  Old  World 
and  the  New — on  one  side  the  dreary  conception  of  out- 
lying countries  as  fields  to  be  exploited  for  the  benefit  of 
"  investors,"  successful  revolutionists  to  be  recognized  in 
so  far  as  they  promoted  such  ends,  and  no  consideration 
to  be  shown  to  the  victims  of  their  rapacity;  and  the 
new  American  idea,  the  idea  which  had  been  made  reality 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO        193 

in  Cuba  and  the  Philippines,  that  the  enlightened  and 
successful  nations  stood  something  in  the  position  of 
trustees  to  such  unfortunate  lands  and  that  it  was  their 
duty  to  lead  them  along  the  slow  pathway  of  progress 
and  democracy.  So  far  the  Wilsonian  principle  could  be 
joyfully  supported  by  the  Ambassador.  Page  disagreed 
with  the  President,  however,  in  that  he  accepted  the  f 
logical  consequences  of  this  programme.  His  formula  of 
"shooting  people  into  self-government,"  which  had  so 
entertained  the  British  Foreign  Secretary,  was  a  char- 
acteristically breezy  description  of  the  alternative  that 
Page,  in  the  last  resort,  was  ready  to  adopt,  but  which 
President  Wilson  and  Secretary  Bryan  persistently  re- 
fused to  consider.  Page  was  just  as  insistent  as  the 
Washington  Administration  that  Huerta  should  resign 
and  that  Great  Britain  should  assist  the  United  States 
in  accomplishing  his  dethronement,  and  that  the  Mexican 
people  should  have  a  real  opportunity  of  setting  up  for 
themselves.  He  was  not  enough  of  an  "idealist,"  how- 
ever, to  believe  that  the  Mexicans,  without  the  assistance 
of  their  powerful  neighbours,  could  succeed  in  establishing 
a  constitutional  government.  In  early  August,  1913, 
President  Wilson  sent  Mr.  John  Lind,  ex-Governor  of 
Minnesota,  to  Mexico  as  his  personal  representative. 
His  mission  was  to  invite  Huerta  to  remove  himself 
from  Mexican  politics,  and  to  permit  the  Mexican  people 
to  hold  a  presidential  election  at  which  Huerta  would 
himself  agree  not  to  be  a  candidate.  Mr.  Lind  presented 
these  proposals  on  August  15th,  and  President  Huerta  re- 
jected every  one  of  them  with  a  somewhat  disconcerting 
promptitude. 

That  Page  was  prepared  to  accept  the  consequences  of 
this  failure  appears  in  the  following  letter.  The  lack  of 
confidence  which  it  discloses  in  Secretary  Bryan  was  a 


194       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

feeling  that  became  stronger  as  the  Mexican  drama  un- 
folded. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

,T  „  London,  August  25, 1913. 

MY  DEAR  HOUSE: 

.  .  .  If  you  find  a  chance,  get  the  substance  of  this 
memorandum  into  the  hands  of  two  men :  the  President 
and  the  Secretary  of  Agriculture.  Get  'em  in  Houston's 
at  once — into  the  President's  whenever  the  time  is  ripe. 
I  send  the  substance  to  Washington  and  I  send  many 
other  such  things.  But  I  never  feel  sure  that  they  reach 
the  President.  The  most  confidential  letter  I  have 
written  was  lost  in  Washington,  and  there  is  pretty  good 
testimony  that  it  reached  the  Secretary's  desk.  He  does 
not  acknowledge  the  important  things,  but  writes  me 
confidentially  to  inquire  if  the  office  of  the  man  who 
attends  to  the  mail  pouches  (the  diplomatic  and  naval 
despatches  in  London)1  is  not  an  office  into  which  he 
might  put  a  Democrat. — But  I  keep  at  it.  It  would  be 
a  pleasure  to  know  that  the  President  knows  what  I 

am  trying  to  do.     ... 

Yours  heartily, 

WALTER  H.   PAGE. 
Following  is  the  memorandum : 

In  October  the  provisional  recognition  of  Huerta  by 
England  will  end.  Then  this  Government  will  be  free. 
Then  is  the  time  for  the  United  States  to  propose  to 
England  joint  intervention  merely  to  reduce  this  turbu- 
lent scandal  of  a  country  to  order — on  an  agreement,  of 
course,  to  preserve  the  territorial  integrity  of  Mexico. 
It's  a  mere  police  duty  that  all  great  nations  have  to  do- 
as  they  did  in  the  case  of  the  Boxer  riots  in  China.  Of 

the  Appendix  (at  end  of  Vol.  II)  for  this  episode  in  detail. 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO         195 

course  Germany  and  France,  etc.,  ought  to  be  invited— 
on  the  same  pledge:  the  preservation  of  territorial  in- 
tegrity. If  Germany  should  come  in,  she  will  thereby 
practically  acknowledge  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  as  England 
has  already  done.  If  Germany  stay  out,  then  she  can't 
complain.  England  and  the  United  States  would  have 
only  to  announce  their  intention:  there 'd  be  no  need  to 
fire  a  gun.  Besides  settling  the  Mexican  trouble,  we'd 
gain  much — having  had  England  by  our  side  in  a  praise- 
worthy enterprise.  That,  and  the  President's  visit1 
would  give  the  world  notice  to  whom  it  belongs,  and 
cause  it  to  be  quiet  and  to  go  about  its  proper  business  of 
peaceful  industry. 

Moreover,  it  would  show  all  the  Central  and  South 
American  States  that  we  don't  want  any  of  their  territory, 
that  we  will  not  let  anybody  else  have  any,  but  that  they, 
too,  must  keep  orderly  government  or  the  great  Nations 
of  the  earth,  will,  at  our  bidding,  forcibly  demand  quiet  in 
their  borders.  I  believe  a  new  era  of  security  would  come 
in  all  Spanish  America.  Investments  would  be  safer, 
governments  more  careful  and  orderly.  And — we  would 
not  have  made  any  entangling  alliance  with  anybody.  All 
this  would  prevent  perhaps  dozens  of  little  wars.  It's 
merely  using  the  English  fleet  and  ours  to  make  the  world 
understand  that  the  time  has  come  for  orderliness  and 
peace  and  for  the  honest  development  of  backward,  tur- 
bulent lands  and  peoples. 

If  you  don't  put  this  through,  tell  me  what's  the 
matter  with  it.  I've  sent  it  to  Washington  after  talking 
and  being  talked  to  for  a  month  and  after  the  hardest 
kind  of  thinking.  Isn't  this  constructive?  Isn't  it  using 

irThere  was  a  suggestion,  which  the  Ambassador  endorsed,  that  President  Wilson 
should  visit  England  to  accept,  in  the  name  of  the  United  States,  Sulgrave  Manor, 
the  ancestral  home  of  the  Washingtons.  See  Chapter  IX,  page  274. 


196       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

the  great  power  lying  idle  about  the  world,  to  do  the  thing 
that  most  needs  to  be  done? 

Colonel  House  presented  this  memorandum  to  the 
President,  but  events  sufficiently  disclosed  that  it  had  no 
influence  upon  his  Mexican  policy.  Two  days  after  it 
was  written  Mr.  Wilson  went  before  Congress,  announced 
that  the  Lind  Mission  had  failed,  and  that  conditions  in 
Mexico  had  grown  worse.  He  advised  all  Americans  to 
leave  the  country,  and  declared  that  he  would  lay  an 
embargo  on  the  shipment  of  munitions — an  embargo 
that  would  affect  both  the  Huerta  forces  and  the  revo- 
lutionary groups  that  were  fighting  them. 

Meanwhile  Great  Britain  had  taken  another  step  that 
made  as  unpleasant  an  impression  on  Washington  as  had 
the  recognition  of  Huerta.  Sir  Lionel  Edward  Gresley 
Garden  had  for  several  years  been  occupying  British 
diplomatic  posts  in  Central  America,  in  all  of  which  he 
had  had  disagreeable  social  and  diplomatic  relations  with 
Americans.  Sir  Lionel  had  always  shown  great  zeal  in 
promoting  British  commercial  interests,  and,  justly  or 
unjustly,  had  acquired  the  fame  of  being  intensely  anti- 
American.  From  1911  to  1913  Garden  had  served  as 
British  Minister  to  Cuba;  here  his  anti- Americanism  had 
shown  itself  in  such  obnoxious  ways  that  Mr.  Knox, 
Secretary  of  State  under  President  Taft,  had  instructed 
Ambassador  Reid  to  bring  his  behaviour  to  the  attention 
of  the  British  Foreign  Office.  These  representations  took 
practically  the  form  of  requesting  Garden's  removal  from 
Cuba.  Perhaps  the  unusual  relations  that  the  United 
States  bore  toward  Cuba  warranted  Mr.  Knox  in  making 
such  an  approach ;  yet  the  British  refused  to  see  the  mat- 
ter in  that  light;  not  only  did  they  fail  to  displace  Garden, 
but  they  knighted  him — the  traditional  British  way  of 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO         197 

defending  a  faithful  public  servant  who  has  been  at- 
tacked. Sir  Lionel  Garden  refused  to  mend  his  ways;  ^ 
he  continued  to  indulge  in  what  Washington  regarded  as 
anti- American  propaganda;  and  a  second  time  Secretary 
Knox  intimated  that  his  removal  would  be  acceptable  to 
this  country,  and  a  second  time  this  request  was  refused. 
With  this  preliminary  history  of  Garden  as  a  background, 
and  with  the  British-American  misunderstanding  over 
Huerta  at  its  most  serious  stage,  the  emotions  of  Washing- 
ton may  well  be  imagined  when  the  news  came,  in  July, 
1913,  that  this  same  gentleman  had  been  appointed 
British  Minister  to  Mexico.  If  the  British  Government  ^ 
had  ransacked  its  diplomatic  force  to  find  the  one  man 
who  would  have  been  most  objectionable  to  the  United 
States,  it  could  have  made  no  better  selection.  The 
President  and  Mr.  Bryan  were  pretty  well  persuaded  that 
the  "oil  concessionaires"  were  dictating  British-Mexican  / 
policy,  and  this  appointment  translated  their  suspicion 
into  a  conviction.  Garden  had  seen  much  service  in 
Mexico;  he  had  been  on  the  friendliest  terms  with  Diaz; 
and  the  newspapers  openly  charged  that  the  British  oil 
capitalists  had  dictated  his  selection.  All  these  asser- 
tions Garden  and  the  oil  interests  denied;  yet  Garden's 
behaviour  from  the  day  of  his  appointment  showed  great 
hostility  to  the  United  States.  A  few  days  after  he  had 
reached  New  York,  on  his  way  to  his  new  post,  the  New 
York  World  published  an  interview  with  Garden  in  which 
he  was  reported  as  declaring  that  President  Wilson  knew 
nothing  about  the  Mexican  situation  and  in  which  he 
took  the  stand  that  Huerta  was  the  man  to  handle 
Mexico  at  this  crisis.  His  appearance  in  the  Mexican 
capital  was  accompanied  by  other  highly  undiplomatic 
publications.  In  late  October  President  Huerta  arrested 
all  his  enemies  in  the  Mexican  Congress,  threw  them 


198       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

into  jail,  and  proclaimed  himself  dictator.  Washington 
was  much  displeased  that  Sir  Lionel  Garden  should  have 
selected  the  day  of  these  high-handed  proceedings  to 
present  to  Huerta  his  credentials  as  minister;  in  its  sen- 
sitive condition,  the  State  Department  interpreted  this 
act  as  a  reaffirmation  of  that  recognition  that  had  al- 
ready caused  so  much  confusion  in  Mexican  affairs. 

Garden  made  things  worse  by  giving  out  more  news- 
paper interviews,  a  tendency  that  had  apparently  grown 
into  a  habit.  "I  do  not  believe  that  the  United  States 
recognizes  the  seriousness  of  the  situation  here.  .  .  . 
I  see  no  reason  why  Huerta  should  be  displaced  by  another 
man  whose  abilities  are  yet  to  be  tried.  .  .  .  Safety 
in  Mexico  can  be  secured  only  by  punitive  and  remedial 
methods,  and  a  strongman;" — such  were  a  few  of  the  re- 
flections that  the  reporters  attributed  to  this  astonishing 
diplomat.  Meanwhile,  the  newspapers  were  filled  with 
reports  that  the  British  Minister  was  daily  consorting 
with  Huerta,  that  he  was  constantly  strengthening  that 
chieftain's  backbone  in  opposition  to  the  United  States 
and  that  he  was  obtaining  concessions  in  return  for  this 
support.  To  what  extent  these  press  accounts  rested  on 
fact  cannot  be  ascertained  definitely  at  this  time;  yet  it 
is  a  truth  that  Garden's  general  behaviour  gave  great 
encouragement  to  Huerta  and  that  it  had  the  deplorable 
effect  of  placing  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  in 
opposition.  The  interpretation  of  the  casual  reader  was 
that  Great  Britain  was  determined  to  seat  Huerta  in  the 
Presidency  against  the  determination  of  the  United 
States  to  keep  him  out.  The  attitude  of  the  Washington 
cabinet  was  almost  bitter  at  this  time  against  the  British 
Government.  "There  is  a  feeling  here,"  wrote  Secretary 
Lane  to  Page,  "that  England  is  playing  a  game  unworthy 
of  her." 


POLICY 

The  British  Government  promptly  denied  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  Garden  interview,  but  that  helped  matters 
little,  for  the  American  public  insisted  on  regarding  such 
denials  as  purely  diplomatic.  Something  of  a  storm 
against  Garden  arose  in  England  itself,  where  it  was 
believed  that  his  conception  of  his  duties  was  estranging 
two  friendly  countries.  Probably  the  chief  difficulty  was 
that  the  British  Foreign  Office  could  see  no  logical  se- 
quence in  the  Washington  policy.  Put  Huerta  out — yes, 
by  all  means:  but  what  then?  Page's  notes  of  his  visit 
to  Sir  Edward  Grey  a  few  days  after  the  latest  Garden 
interview  confirm  this: 

I  have  just  come  from  an  hour's  talk  with  Grey  about 
Mexico.  He  showed  me  his  telegram  to  Garden,  asking 
about  Garden's  reported  interview  criticizing  the  United 
States,  and  Garden's  flat  denial.  He  showed  me  another 
telegram  to  Garden  about  Huerta's  reported  boast  that 
he  would  have  the  backing  of  London,  Paris,  and  Berlin 
against  the  United  States,  in  which  Grey  advised  Garden 
that  British  policy  should  be  to  keep  aloof  from  Huerta's 
boasts  and  plans.  Garden  denied  that  Huerta  made  such 
a  boast  in  his  statement  to  the  Diplomatic  Corps.  Grey 
wishes  the  President  to  know  of  these  telegrams. 

Talk  then  became  personal  and  informal.  I  went  over 
the  whole  subject  again,  telling  how  the  Press  and  people 
of  the  United  States  were  becoming  critical  of  the  British 
Government;  that  they  regarded  the  problem  as  wholly 
American;  that  they  resented  aid  to  Huerta,  whom  they 
regarded  as  a  mere  tyrant;  that  they  suspected  British 
interests  of  giving  financial  help  to  Huerta;  that  many 
newspapers  and  persons  refused  to  believe  Garden's  de- 
nial; that  the  President's  policy  was  not  academic  but 
was  the  only  policy  that  would  square  with  American 


200      THE  LIFE   AND  LETTERS  OF  WALTER  H.   PAGE 

ideals  and  that  it  was  unchangeable.  I  cited  our  treat- 
ment of  Cuba.  I  explained  again  that  I  was  talking  un- 
officially and  giving  him  only  my  own  interpretation  of 
the  people's  mood.  He  asked,  if  the  British  Government 
should  withdraw  the  recognition  of  Huerta,  what  would 
happen. 

"In  my  opinion,"  I  replied,  "he  would  collapse." 
"What  would  happen  then — worse  chaos?" 
"That  is  impossible,"  I  said.     "There  is  no  worse 
chaos  than  deputies  in  jail,  the  dictatorial  doubling  of  the 
tariff,  the  suppression  of  opinion,  and  the  practical  ban- 
ishment of  independent  men.     If  Huerta  should  fall, 
there  is  hope  that  suppressed  men  and  opinion  will  set  up 
a  successful  government." 

"Suppose  that  fail,"  he  asked — "what  then?" 
I  replied  that,  in  case  of  continued  and  utter  failure, 
the  United  States  might  feel  obliged  to  repeat  its  dealings 
with  Cuba  and  that  the  continued  excitement  of  opinion 
in  the  United  States  might  precipitate  this. 

Grey  protested  that  he  knew  nothing  of  what  British 
interests  had  done  or  were  doing,  that  he  wished  time  to 
think  the  matter  out  and  that  he  was  glad  to  await  the 
President's  communication.  He  thanked  me  cordially 
for  my  frank  statements  and  declared  that  he  understood 
perfectly  their  personal  nature.  I  impressed  him  with 
the  seriousness  of  American  public  opinion. 

The  last  thing  that  the  British  Government  desired 
at  this  time  was  a  serious  misunderstanding  with  the 
United  States,  on  Mexico  or  any  other  matter.  Yet  the 
Mexican  situation,  in  early  November,  1913,  clearly  de- 
manded a  complete  cleaning  up.  The  occasion  soon  pre- 
sented itself.  Sir  William  Tyrrell,  the  private  secretary 
of  Sir  Edward  Grey  sailed,  in  late  October,  for  the  United 


"POLICY"  AND  ''PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO        201 

States.  The  purpose  of  his  visit  was  not  diplomatic,  but 
Page  evidently  believed  that  his  presence  in  the  United 
States  offered  too  good  an  opportunity  to  be  lost. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

Newton  Hall,  Newton,  Cambridge. 

Sunday,  October  26,  1913. 
DEAR  HOUSE  : 

Sir  William  Tyrrell,  the  secretary  of  Sir  Edward  Grey — 
himself,  I  think,  an  M.  P. — has  gone  to  the  United  States 
to  visit  his  friend,  Sir  Cecil  Spring  Rice.  He  sailed  yes- 
terday, going  first  to  Dublin,  N.  H.,  thence  with  the  Am- 
bassador to  Washington.  He  has  never  before  been  to 
the  United  States,  and  he  went  off  in  high  glee,  alone, 
to  see  it.  He's  a  good  fellow,  a  thoroughly  good  fellow, 
and  he's  an  important  man.  He  of  course  has  Sir  Ed- 
ward's complete  confidence,  but  he's  also  a  man  on 
his  own  account.  I  have  come  to  reckon  it  worth 
while  to  get  ideas  that  I  want  driven  home  into  his 
head.  It's  a  good  head  and  a  good  place  to  put  good 
ideas. 

The  Lord  knows  you  have  far  too  much  to  do;  but  in 
this  juncture  I  should  count  it  worth  your  while  to  pay 
him  some  attention.  I  want  him  to  get  the  President's 
ideas  about  Mexico,  good  and  firm  and  hard.  They  are 
so  far  from  altruistic  in  their  politics  here  that  it  would 
be  a  good  piece  of  work  to  get  our  ideas  and  aims  into 
this  man's  head.  His  going  gives  you  and  the  President 
and  everybody  a  capital  chance  to  help  me  keep  our  good 
American-English  understanding. 

Whatever  happen  in  Mexico,  I'm  afraid  there  will  be 
a  disturbance  of  the  very  friendly  feeling  between  the 
American  people  and  the  English.  I  am  delivering  a 
series  of  well-thought-out  discourses  to  Sir  Edward — 


202       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

with  what  effect,  I  don't  know.  If  the  American  press 
could  be  held  in  a  little,  that  would  be  as  good  as  it  is 
impossible. 

I'm  now  giving  the  Foreign  Office  the  chance  to  refrain 
from  more  premature  recognizing. 

Very  hastily  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

Sir  William  Tyrrell,  to  whom  Page  refers  so  pleasantly, 
was  one  of  the  most  engaging  men  personally  in  the 
British  Foreign  Office,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  influen- 
tial. Though  he  came  to  America  on  no  official  mission 
to  our  Government,  he  was  exceptionally  qualified  to 
discuss  Mexico  and  other  pending  questions  with  the 
Washington  Administration.  He  had  an  excellent  back- 
ground, and  a  keen  insight  into  the  human  aspects 
of  all  problems,  but  perhaps  his  most  impressive  phys- 
ical trait  was  a  twinkling  eye,  as  his  most  conspicu- 
ous mental  quality  was  certainly  a  sense  of  humour. 
Constant  association  with  Sir  Edward  Grey  had  given  his 
mind  a  cast  not  dissimilar  to  that  of  his  chief — a  belief 
in  ordinary  decency  in  international  relations,  an  enthu- 
siasm for  the  better  ordering  of  the  world,  a  sincere  ad- 
miration for  the  United  States  and  a  desire  to  maintain 
British- American  friendship.  In  his  first  encounter  with 
official  Washington  Sir  William  needed  all  that  sense  of 
the  ludicrous  with  which  he  is  abundantly  endowed. 
This  took  the  form  of  a  long  interview  with  Secretary 
Bryan  on  the  foreign  policy  of  Great  Britain.  The 
Secretary  harangued  Sir  William  on  the  wickedness  of 
the  British  Empire,  particularly  in  Egypt  and  India  and 
in  Mexico.  The  British  oil  men,  Mr.  Bryan  declared,  was 
nothing  but  the  "paymasters"  of  the  British  Cabinet. 

"You  are  wrong,"  replied  the  Englishman,  who  saw 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO        203 

that  the  only  thing  to  do  on  an  occasion  of  this  kind  was 
to  refuse  to  take  the  Secretary  seriously.  "  Lord  Cowdray 
hasn't  money  enough.  Through  a  long  experience  with 
corruption  the  Cabinet  has  grown  so  greedy  that  Cow- 
dray  hasn't  the  money  necessary  to  reach  their  price." 

"Ah,"  said  Mr.  Bryan,  triumphantly,  accepting  Sir 
William's  bantering  answer  as  made  in  all  seriousness. 
"Then  you  admit  the  charge." 

From  this  he  proceeded  to  denounce  Great  Britain  in 
still  more  unmeasured  terms.  The  British,  he  declared, 
had  only  one  interest  in  Mexico,  and  that  was  oil.  The 
Foreign  Office  had  simply  handed  its  Mexican  poh'cy 
over  to  the  "oil  barons"  for  predatory  purposes. 

"That's  just  what  the  Standard  Oil  people  told  me  in 
New  York,"  the  British  diplomat  replied.  "Mr.  Secre- 
tary, you  are  talking  just  like  a  Standard  Oil  man.  The 
ideas  that  you  hold  are  the  ones  which  the  Standard  Oil 
is  disseminating.  You  are  pursuing  the  poh'cy  which 
they  have  decided  on.  Without  knowing  it  you  are 
promoting  the  interest  of  Standard  Oil." 

Sir  William  saw  that  it  was  useless  to  discuss  Mexico 

(with  Mr.  Bryan — that  the  Secretary  was  not  a  thinker 
but  an  emotionalist.  However,  despite  their  differences, 
the  two  men  liked  each  other  and  had  a  good  time.  As 
Sir  William  was  leaving,  he  bowed  deferentially  to  the 
Secretary  of  State  and  said: 

"You  have  stripped  me  naked,  Mr.  Secretary,  but  I 
am  unashamed." 

With  President  Wilson,  however,  the  Englishman  had 
a  more  satisfactory  experience.  He  was  delighted  by 
the  President's  courtesy,  charm,  intelligence,  and  con- 
versational powers.  The  impression  which  Sir  William 
obtained  of  the  American  President  on  this  occasion  re- 
mained with  him  for  several  years  and  was  itself  an 


204      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

important  element  in  British- American  relations  after  the 
outbreak  of  the  World  War.  And  the  visit  was  a  profit- 
able one  for  Mr.  Wilson,  since  he  obtained  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  British  policy  toward  Mexico.  Sir  William 
succeeded  in  persuading  the  President  that  the  so-called 
oil  interests  were  not  dictating  the  policy  of  Sir  Edward 
Grey.  That  British  oil  men  were  active  in  Mexico  was  ap- 
parent; but  they  were  not  using  a  statesman  of  so  high  a 
character  as  Sir  Edward  Grey  for  their  purposes  and  would 
not  be  able  to  do  so.  The  British  Government  entertained 
no  ambitions  in  Mexico  that  meant  unfriendliness  to  the 
United  States.  In  no  way  was  the  policy  of  Great  Britain 
hostile  to  our  own.  In  fact,  the  British  recognized  the  pre- 
dominant character  of  the  American  interest  in  Mexico  and 
were  willing  to  accept  any  policy  in  which  Washington 
would  take  the  lead.  All  it  asked  was  that  British  pro- 
perty and  British  lives  be  protected;  once  these  were 
safeguarded  Great  Britain  was  ready  to  stand  aside  and  let 
the  United  States  deal  with  Mexico  in  its  own  way. 

The  one  disappointment  of  this  visit  was  that  Sir 
William  Tyrrell  was  unable  to  obtain  from  President 
Wilson  any  satisfactory  statement  of  his  Mexican  policy. 

"When  I  go  back  to  England,"  said  the  Englishman, 
as  the  interview  was  approaching  an  end,  "I  shall  be 
asked  to  explain  your  Mexican  policy.  Can  you  tell  me 
what  it  is?" 

President  Wilson  looked  at  him  earnestly  and  said,  in 
his  most  decisive  manner: 

"I  am  going  to  teach  the  South  American  Republics  to 
elect  good  men!" 

This  was  excellent  as  a  purpose,  but  it  could  hardly  be 
regarded  as  a  programme. 

"Yes,"  replied  Sir  William,  "but,  Mr.  President,  I 
shall  have  to  explain  this  to  Englishmen,  who,  as  you 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO        205 

know,  lack  imagination.  They  cannot  see  what  is  the 
difference  between  Huerta,  Carranza,  and  Villa." 

The  only  answer  he  could  obtain  was  that  Carranza 
was  the  best  of  the  three  and  that  Villa  was  not  so  bad  as 
he  had  been  painted.  But  the  phrase  that  remained 
with  the  British  diplomat  was  that  one  so  characteristi- 
cally Wilsonian:  "I  propose  to  teach  the  South  American 
Republics  to  elect  good  men."  In  its  attitude,  its  phras- 
ing, it  held  the  key  to  much  Wilson  history. 

Additional  details  of  this  historic  interview  are  given 
in  Colonel  House's  letters: 

From  Edward  M.  House 

145  East  35th  Street, 

New  York  City. 
November  4,  1913. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

Your  cablegram,  telling  me  of  the  arrival  of  Sir  William 
Tyrrell  on  the  Imperator,  was  handed  me  on  my  way  to 
the  train  as  I  left  for  Washington. 

The  President  talked  with  me  about  the  Mexican  situ- 
ation and  it  looks  as  if  something  positive  will  be  done  in  a 
few  days  unless  Huerta  abdicates. 

It  is  to  be  the  policy  of  this  Administration  henceforth 
not  to  recognize  any  Central  American  government  that 
is  not  formed  along  constitutional  lines.  Anything  else 
would  be  a  makeshift  policy.  As  you  know,  revolutions 
and  assassinations  in  order  to  obtain  control  of  govern- 
ments are  instituted  almost  wholly  for  the  purpose  of 
loot  and  when  it  is  found  that  these  methods  will  not 
bring  the  desired  results,  they  will  cease. 

The  President  also  feels  strongly  in  regard  to  foreign 
financial  interests  seeking  to  control  those  unstable  gov- 
ernments through  concessions  and  otherwise.  This,  too, 


206      THE   LIFE   AND  LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

he  is  determined  to  discourage  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to 
do  so. 

This  was  a  great  opportunity  for  England  and  America 
to  get  together.  You  know  how  strongly  we  both  feel 
upon  this  subject  and  I  do  not  believe  that  the  President 
differed  greatly  from  us,  but  the  recent  actions  of  the 
British  Government  have  produced  a  decided  irritation, 
which  to  say  the  least  is  unfortunate. 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

145  East  35th  Street, 

New  York  City. 
November  14,  1913. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

Things  have  happened  quickly  since  I  last  wrote  to  you. 

I  went  to  Washington  Monday  night  as  the  guest  of 
the  Bryans.  They  have  been  wanting  me  to  come  to 
them  and  I  thought  this  a  good  opportunity. 

I  talked  the  Mexican  situation  out  thoroughly  with 
him  and  one  of  your  dispatches  came  while  I  was  there. 
I  found  that  he  was  becoming  prejudiced  against  the 
British  Government,  believing  that  their  Mexican  policy 
was  based  purely  upon  commercialism,  that  they  were 
backing  Huerta  quietly  at  the  instance  of  Lord  Cowdray, 
and  that  Cowdray  had  not  only  already  obtained  con- 
cessions from  the  Huerta  Government,  but  expected  to 
obtain  others.  Sir  Lionel  Garden  was  also  all  to  the  bad. 

I  saw  the  President  and  his  views  were  not  very  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  Mr.  Bryan.  I  asked  the  President 
to  permit  me  to  see  Sir  William  Tyrrell  and  talk  to  him 
frankly  and  to  attempt  to  straighten  the  tangle  out.  He 
gave  me  a  free  hand. 

I  lunched  with  Sir  William  at  the  British  Embassy  al- 


"POLICY"   AND       PRINCIPLE       IN   MEXICO  207 

though  Sir  Cecil  Spring  Rice  was  not  well  enough  to  be 
present.  I  had  a  long  talk  with  Sir  William  after  lunch 
and  found  that  our  suspicions  were  unwarranted  and  that 
we  could  get  together  without  any  difficulty  whatever. 

I  told  him  very  frankly  what  our  purpose  was  in  Mex- 
ico and  that  we  were  determined  to  carry  it  through  if  it 
was  within  our  power  to  do  so.  That  being  so  I  suggested 
that  he  get  his  government  to  cooperate  cordially  with 
ours  rather  than  to  accept  our  policy  reluctantly. 

I  told  him  that  you  and  I  had  dreamed  of  a  sympathetic 
alliance  between  the  two  countries  and  that  it  seemed  to 
me  that  this  dream  might  come  true  very  quickly  because 
of  the  President  and  Sir  Edward  Grey.  He  expressed  a 
willingness  to  cooperate  freely  and  I  told  him  I  would 
arrange  an  early  meeting  with  the  President.  I  thought  it 
better  to  bring  the  President  into  the  game  rather  than 
Mr.  Bryan.  I  told  him  of  the  President's  attitude  upon 
the  Panama  toll  question  but  I  touched  upon  that  lightly 
and  in  confidence,  preferring  for  the  President  himself  to 
make  his  own  statement. 

I  left  the  Bryans  in  the  morning  of  the  luncheon  with 
Sir  William,  intending  to  take  an  afternoon  train  for  New 
York,  but  the  President  wanted  me  to  stay  with  him  at  the 
White  House  over  night  and  meet  Sir  William  with  him 
at  half  past  nine  the  following  morning.  He  was  so  tired 
that  I  did  not  have  the  heart  to  urge  a  meeting  that  night. 

From  half  past  nine  until  half  past  ten  the  President 
and  Sir  William  repeated  to  each  other  what  they  had 
said  separately  to  me,  and  which  I  had  given  to  each, 
and  then  the  President  elaborated  upon  the  toll  question 
much  to  the  satisfaction  of  Sir  William. 

He  explained  the  matter  in  detail  and  assured  him  of 
his  entire  sympathy  and  purpose  to  carry  out  our  treaty 
obligations,  both  in  the  letter  and  the  spirit. 


208      THE  LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

Sir  William  was  very  happy  after  the  interview  and 
when  the  President  left  us  he  remained  to  talk  to  me  and 
to  express  his  gratification.  He  cleared  up  in  the  Presi- 
dent's mind  all  suspicion,  I  think,  in  regard  to  concessions 
and  as  to  the  intentions  and  purposes  of  the  British  Gov- 
ernment. He  assured  the  President  that  his  government 
would  work  cordially  with  ours  and  that  they  would  do 
all  that  they  could  to  bring  about  joint  pressure  through 
Germany  and  France  for  the  elimination  of  Huerta. 

We  are  going  to  give  them  a  chance  to  see  what  they 
can  do  with  Huerta  before  moving  any  further.  Sir 
William  thinks  that  if  we  are  willing  to  let  Huerta  save 
his  face  he  can  be  got  out  without  force  of  arms. 

Sir  William  said  that  if  foreign  diplomats  could  have 
heard  our  conversation  they  would  have  fallen  in  a  faint; 
it  was  so  frankly  indiscreet  and  undiplomatic.  I  did  not 
tell  him  so,  but  I  had  it  in  the  back  of  my  mind  that 
where  people  wanted  to  do  right  and  had  the  power  to 
carry  out  their  intentions  there  was  no  need  to  cloak  their 
thoughts  in  diplomatic  language. 

All  this  makes  me  very  happy  for  it  looks  as  if  we  are  in 
sight  of  the  promised  land. 

I  am  pleased  to  tell  you  of  the  compliments  that  have 
been  thrown  at  you  by  the  President,  Mr.  Bryan,  and 
Sir  William.  They  were  all  enthusiastic  over  your  work 
in  London  and  expressed  the  keenest  appreciation  of  the 
way  in  which  you  have  handled  matters.  Sir  William 
told  me  that  he  did  not  remember  an  American  Am- 
bassador that  was  your  equal. 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

So  far  as  a  meeting  between  a  British  diplomat  and  the 
President  of  the  United  States  could  solve  the  Mexican 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO        209 

problem,  that  problem  was  apparently  solved.  The 
dearest  wish  of  Mr.  Wilson,  the  elimination  of  Huerta, 
seemed  to  be  approaching  realization,  now  that  he  had 
persuaded  Great  Britain  to  support  him  in  this  enter- 
prise. Whether  Sir  William  Tyrrell,  or  Sir  Edward 
Grey,  had  really  become  converted  to  the  President's 
"idealistic"  plans  for  Mexico  is  an  entirely  different 
question.  At  this  time  there  was  another  matter  in 
which  Great  Britain's  interest  was  even  greater  than  in 
Mexico.  These  letters  have  already  contained  reference  to 
tolls  on  the  Panama  Canal.  Colonel  House's  letter  shows 
that  the  President  discussed  this  topic  with  Sir  William 
Tyrrell  and  gave  him  assurances  that  this  would  be 
settled  on  terms  satisfactory  to  Great  Britain.  It  can- 
not be  maintained  that  that  assurance  was  really  the 
consideration  which  paved  the  way  to  an  understanding 
on  Huerta.  The  conversation  was  entirely  informal; 
indeed,  it  could  not  be  otherwise,  for  Sir  William  Tyrrell 
brought  no  credentials ;  there  could  be  no  definite  bargain 
or  agreement,  but  there  is  little  question  that  Mr.  Wilson's 
friendly  disposition  toward  British  shipping  through  the 
Panama  Canal  made  it  easy  for  Great  Britain  to  give  him 
a  free  hand  in  Mexico. 

A  few  days  after  this  White  House  interview  Sir 
Lionel  Garden  performed  what  must  have  been  for  him 
an  uncongenial  duty.  This  loquacious  minister  led  a 
procession  of  European  diplomats  to  General  Huerta,  \/ 
formally  advised  that  warrior  to  yield  to  the  American 
demands  and  withdraw  from  the  Presidency  of  Mexico. 
The  delegation  informed  the  grim  dictator  that  their 
governments  were  supporting  the  American  policy  and 
Sir  Lionel  brought  him  the  unwelcome  news  that  he  could 
not  depend  upon  British  support.  About  the  same  time 
Premier  Asquith  made  conciliatory  remarks  on  Mexico 


210       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

at  the  Guildhall  banquet.  He  denied  that  the  British 
Government  had  undertaken  any  policy  "deliberately 
opposed  to  that  of  the  United  States.  There  is  no  vestige 
of  foundation  for  such  a  rumour."  These  events  changed 
the  atmosphere  at  Washington,  which  now  became  al- 
most as  cordial  to  Great  Britain  as  it  had  for  several 
months  been  suspicious. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

London,  November  15,  1913. 
DEAR  HOUSE: 

All's  well  here.  The  whole  trouble  was  caused  not 
here  but  in  Mexico  City;  and  that  is  to  be  remedied  yet. 
And  it  will  be!  For  the  moment  it  is  nullified.  But  you 
need  give  yourself  no  concern  about  the  English  Govern- 
ment or  people,  in  the  long  run.  It  is  taking  them  some 
time  to  see  the  vast  difference  between  acting  by  a 
principle  and  acting  by  what  they  call  a  "policy."  They 
and  we  ourselves  too  have  from  immemorial  time  been 
recognizing  successful  adventurers,  and  they  didn't  in- 
stantly understand  this  new  "idealistic"  move;  they 
didn't  know  the  man  at  the  helm!  I  preached  many 
sermons  to  our  friend,  I  explained  the  difference  to  many 
private  groups,  I  made  after-dinner  speeches  leading  right 
up  to  the  point — as  far  as  I  dared,  I  inspired  many  news- 
paper articles;  and  they  see  it  now  and  have  said  it  and 
have  made  it  public;  and  the  British  people  are  enthusias- 
tic as  far  as  they  understand  it. 

And  anybody  concerned  here  understands  the  language 
that  the  President  speaks  now.  You  mustn't  forget  that 
in  all  previous  experiences  in  Latin  America  we  ourselves 
have  been  as  much  to  blame  as  anybody  else.  Now  we 
v  have  a  clear  road  to  travel,  a  policy  based  on  character 
to  follow  forever — a  new  era.  Our  dealing  with  Cuba  was 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO         211 

a  new  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  world.     Our  dealing     ^ 
with  Mexico  is  Chapter  II  of  the  same  Revelation.    Tell 
'em  this  in  Washington. 

The  remaining  task  will  be  done  too  and  I  think  pretty 
soon.  For  that  I  need  well-loaded  shells.  I'll  supply 
the  gunpowder. 

And  don't  you  concern  yourself  about  the  English,    j 
They're  all  right — a  little  slow,  but  all  right. 

Heartily  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

Newtimber  Place,  Hassocks,  Sussex, 

Sunday,  November  23,  1913. 
DEAR  HOUSE: 

Your  letter  telling  me  about  Tyrrell  and  the  President 
brought  me  great  joy.  Tyrrell  is  in  every  way  a  square 
fellow,  much  like  his  Chief;  and,  you  may  depend  on  it, 
they  are  playing  fair — in  their  slow  way.  They  always 
think  of  India  and  of  Egypt — never  of  Cuba.  Lord! 
Lord!  the  fun  I've  had,  the  holy  joy  I  am  having  (I  never 
expected  to  have  such  exalted  and  invigorating  felicity)  \J 
in  delivering  elementary  courses  of  instruction  in  de- 
mocracy to  the  British  Government.  Deep  down  at  the 
bottom,  they  don't  know  what  Democracy  means. 
Their  Empire  is  in  the  way.  Their  centuries  of  land- 
stealing  are  in  the  way.  Their  unsleeping  watchfulness 
of  British  commerce  is  in  the  way.  "You  say  you'll 
shoot  men  into  self-government,"  said  Sir  Edward. 
"Doesn't  that  strike  you  as  comical?"  And  I  answered, 
"  It  is  comical  only  to  the  Briton  and  to  others  who  have 
associated  shooting  with  subjugation.  We  associate 
shooting  with  freedom."  Half  this  blessed  Sunday  at 
this  country  house  I  have  been  ramming  the  idea  down 


212       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

the  throat  of  the  Lord  Chancellor.1  He  sees  it,  too,  being 
a  Scotchman.  I  take  the  members  of  the  Government, 
as  I  get  the  chance  or  can  make  it,  and  go  over  with  them 
the  A  B  C  of  the  President's  principle:  no  territorial 
annexation;  no  trafficking  with  tyrants;  no  stealing  of 
American  governments  by  concession  or  financial  thimble- 
rigging.  They'll  not  recognize  another  Huerta — they're 
sick  of  that.  And  they'll  not  endanger  our  friendship. 
They  didn't  see  the  idea  in  the  beginning.  Of  course 
the  real  trouble  has  been  in  Mexico  City — Garden.  They 
don't  know  yet  just  what  he  did.  But  they  will,  if  / 
can  find  out.  I  haven't  yet  been  able  to  make  them  tell 
me  at  Washington.  Washington  is  a  deep  hole  of  silence 
toward  ambassadors.  By  gradual  approaches,  I'm  going 
to  prove  that  Garden  can  do — and  in  a  degree  has  al- 
ready done — as  much  harm  as  Bryce  did  good — and  all 
about  a  paltry  few  hundreds  of  million  dollars'  worth  of 
oil.  What  the  devil  does  the  oil  or  the  commerce  of 
Mexico  or  the  investments  there  amount  to  in  com- 
parison with  the  close  friendship  of  the  two  nations? 
Garden  can't  be  good  long:  he'll  break  out  again  pres- 
ently. He  has  no  political  imagination.  That's  a  rather 
common  disease  here,  too.  Few  men  have.  It's  good 
fun.  I'm  inviting  the  Central  and  South  American 
Ministers  to  lunch  with  me,  one  by  one,  and  I'm  in- 
cidentally loading  them  up.  I  have  all  the  boys  in  the 
Embassy  full  of  zeal  and  they  are  tackling  the  Secretaries 
of  the  Central  and  South  American  legations.  We've 
got  a  principle  now  to  deal  by  with  them.  They'll  see 
after  a  while. 

English  people  are  all  right,  too — except  the  Doc- 
trinaires. They  write  much  rank  ignorance.  But  the 
learned  men  learn  things  last  of  all. 

Wiscount  Haldane,  Lord  High  Chancellor  of  Great  Britain  since  1912. 


"POLICY"  AND  "PRINCIPLE"  IN  MEXICO        213 

I  thank  you  heartily  for  your  good  news  about  Tyrrell, 
about  the  President  (but  I'm  sorry  he's  tired:  make  him 
quit  eating  meat  and  play  golf) ;  about  the  Panama  tolls ; 
about  the  Currency  Bill  (my  love  to  McAdoo) ;  about  my 
own  little  affairs. — We  are  looking  with  the  very  greatest 
pleasure  to  the  coming  of  the  young  White  House  couple. 
I've  got  two  big  dinners  for  them — Sir  Edward,  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  a  duchess  or  two,  some  good  folk,  Ruth 
Bryan,  a  couple  of  ambassadors,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  Then 
we'll  take  'em  to  a  literary  speaking-feast  or  two,  have 
'em  invited  to  a  few  great  houses;  then  we'll  give  'em 
another  dinner,  and  then  we'll  get  a  guide  for  them  to 
see  all  the  reforming  institutions  in  London,  to  their 
hearts'  content — lots  of  fun. 

Lots  of  fun :  I  got  the  American  Society  for  its  Thanks- 
giving dinner  to  invite  the  Lord  Chancellor  to  respond 
to  a  toast  to  the  President.  He's  been  to  the  United 
States  lately  and  he  is  greatly  pleased.  So  far,  so  good. 
Then  I  came  down  here — where  he,  too,  is  staying.  After 
five  or  six  hours'  talk  about  everything  else  he  said, 
"By  the  way,  your  countrymen  have  invited  me,"  etc., 
etc.  "Now  what  would  be  appropriate  to  talk  about?" 
Then  I  poured  him  full  of  the  New  Principle  as  regards 
Central  and  South  America;  for,  if  he  will  talk  on  that, 
what  he  says  will  be  reported  and  read  on  both  conti- 
nents. He's  a  foxy  Scot,  and  he  didn't  say  he  would,  but 
he  said  that  he'd  consider  it.  "Consider  it"  means  that 
he  will  confer  with  Sir  Edward.  I'm  beginning  to  learn 
their  vocabulary.  Anyhow  the  Lord  Chancellor  is  in 
line. 

It's  good  news  you  send  always.  Keep  it  up — keep 
it  up.  The  volume  of  silence  that  I  get  is  oppressive. 
You  remember  the  old  nigger  that  wished  to  pick  a  quarrel 
with  another  old  nigger?  Nigger  No.  1  swore  and  stormed 


214       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

at  nigger  No.  2,  and  kept  on  swearing  and  storming, 
hoping  to  provoke  him.  Nigger  No.  2  said  not  a  word, 
but  kept  at  his  work.  Nigger  No.  1  swore  and  stormed 
more.  Nigger  No.  2  said  not  a  word.  Nigger  No.  1 
frothed  still  more.  Nigger  No.  2,  still  silent.  Nigger 
No.  1  got  desperate  and  said:  "Look  here,  you  kinky- 
headed,  flat-nosed,  slab-footed  nigger,  I  warns  you  'fore 
God,  don't  you  keep  givin'  me  none  o'  your  damned 
silence!"  I  wish  you'd  tell  all  my  friends  that  story. 

Always  heartily  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 


CHAPTER  VII 

PERSONALITIES  OF  THE  MEXICAN  PROBLEM: 

PAGE'S  remarks  about  the  "trouble  in  Mexico  City" 
and  the  "remaining  task"  refer,  of  course,  to  Sir 
Lionel  Garden.  "As  I  make  Garden  out,"  he  wrote  about 
this  time,  "he's  a  slow-minded,  unimaginative,  com- 
mercial Briton,  with  as  much  nimbleness  as  an  elephant. 
British  commerce  is  his  deity,  British  advantage  his  duty 
and  mission ;  and  he  goes  about  his  work  with  blunt  dull- 
ness and  ineptitude.  That's  his  mental  calibre  as  I  read 
him — a  dull,  commercial  man." 

Although  Sir  Lionel  Garden  had  been  compelled  to 
harmonize  himself  with  the  American  policy,  Page  re- 
garded his  continued  presence  in  Mexico  City  as  a  stand- 
ing menace  to  British-American  relations.  He  there- 
fore set  himself  to  accomplish  the  minister's  removal. 
The  failure  of  President  Taft's  attempt  to  obtain  Car- 
den's  transfer  from  Havana,  in  1912,  showed  that  Page's 
new  enterprise  was  a  delicate  and  difficult  one;  yet  he 
did  not  hesitate. 

The  part  that  the  wives  of  diplomats  and  statesmen 
play  in  international  relations  is  one  that  few  Americans 
understand.  Yet  in  London,  the  Ambassador's  wife  is 
almost  as  important  a  person  as  the  Ambassador  him- 
self. An  event  which  now  took  place  in  the  American 
Embassy  emphasized  this  point.  A  certain  lady,  well 
known  in  London,  called  upon  Mrs.  Page  and  gave  her 
a  message  on  Mexican  affairs  for  the  Ambassador's 

215 


216       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

benefit.  The  purport  was  that  the  activities  of  certain 
British  commercial  interests  in  Mexico,  if  not  checked, 
would  produce  a  serious  situation  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States.  The  lady  in  question  was  herself 
a  sincere  worker  for  Anglo- American  amity,  and  this 
was  the  motive  that  led  her  to  take  an  unusual  step. 

"It's  all  being  done  for  the  benefit  of  one  man,"  she 
said. 

The  facts  were  presented  in  the  form  of  a  memorandum, 
which  Mrs.  Page  copied  and  gave  the  Ambassador.  This, 
in  turn,  Page  sent  to  President  Wilson. 

To  Edward  M.  Home 

London,  November  26,  1913. 
DEAR  HOUSE: 

Won't  you  read  the  enclosed  and  get  it  to  the  President? 
It  is  somewhat  extra-official  but  it  is  very  confidential, 
and  I  have  a  special  reason  for  wishing  it  to  go  through 
your  hands.  Perhaps  it  will  interest  you. 

The  lady  that  wrote  it  is  one  of  the  very  best-informed 
women  I  know,  one  of  those  active  and  most  influential 
women  in  the  high  political  society  of  this  Kingdom, 
at  whose  table  statesmen  and  diplomats  meet  and  im- 
portant things  come  to  pass.  .  .  . 

I  am  sure  she  has  no  motive  but  the  avowed  one. 
She  has  taken  a  liking  to  Mrs.  Page  and  this  is  merely  a 
friendly  and  patriotic  act. 

I  had  heard  most  of  the  things  before  as  gossip — never 
before  as  here  put  together  by  a  responsible  hand. 

Mrs.  Page  went  to  see  her  and,  as  evidence  of  our  ap- 
preciation and  safety,  gave  the  original  back  to  her. 
We  have  kept  no  copy,  and  I  wish  this  burned,  if  you 
please.  It  would  raise  a  riot  here,  if  any  breath  of  it 
were  to  get  out,  that  would  put  bedlam  to  shame. 


PERSONALITIES   OF  THE   MEXICAN   PROBLEM         217 

Lord  Cowdray  has  been  to  see  me  for  four  successive 
days.  I  have  a  suspicion  (though  I  don't  know)  that, 
instead  of  his  running  the  Government,  the  Government 
has  now  turned  the  tables  and  is  running  him.  His 
government  contract  is  becoming  a  bad  thing  to  sleep 
with.  He  told  me  this  morning  that  he  (through  Lord 
Murray)  had  withdrawn  the  request  for  any  concession 
in  Colombia.1  I  congratulated  him.  ''That,  Lord  Cow- 
dray,  will  save  you  as  well  as  some  other  people  I  know 
a  good  deal  of  possible  trouble."  I  have  explained  to 
him  the  whole  New  Principle  in  extenso,  "so  that  you 
may  see  clearly  where  the  line  of  danger  runs."  Lord! 
how  he's  changed!  Several  weeks  ago  when  I  ran  across 
him  accidentally  he  was  humorous,  almost  cynical.  Now 
he's  very  serious.  I  explained  to  him  that  the  only  thing 
that  had  kept  South  America  from  being  parcelled  out  as 
Africa  has  been  is  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  the  United 
States  behind  it.  He  granted  that. 

"In  Monroe's  time,"  said  I,  "the  only  way  to  take  a 
part  of  South  America  was  to  take  land.  Now  finance 
has  new  ways  of  its  own!" 

"Perhaps,"  said  he. 

"Right  there,"  I  answered,  "where  you  put  your 
'perhaps,'  I  put  a  danger  signal.  That,  I  assure  you, 
you  will  read  about  in  the  histories  as  'The  Wilson 
Doctrine'!" 

You  don't  know  how  easy  it  all  is  with  our  friend  and 
leader  in  command.  I've  almost  grown  bold.  You  feel 
steady  ground  beneath  you.  They  are  taking  to  their 
tents. 

"What's  going  to  happen  in  Mexico  City?" 

JThis  was  another  manifestation  of  British  friendliness.  When  the  American 
excitement  was  most  acute,  it  became  known  that  British  capitalists  had  secured 
oil  concessions  in  Colombia.  At  the  demand  of  the  British  Government  they 
gave  them  up. 


218       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

"A  peaceful  tragedy,  followed  by  emancipation." 
"And  the  great  industries  of  Mexico?'* 
"They  will  not  have  to  depend  on  adventurers'  fa- 
vours!" 

"But  in  the  meantime,  what?" 
"Patience,  looking  towards  justice!" 

Yours  heartily  and  in  health  (you  bet!) 

W.   H.  P. 

From  Edward  M.  House 

145  East  35th  Street, 

New  York  City. 
December  12,  1913. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

Your  budget  under  dates,  November  15th,  23rd,  and 
26th  came  to  me  last  week,  just  after  the  President  had 
been  here.  I  saved  the  letters  until  I  went  to  Washington, 
from  which  place  I  have  just  returned. 

The  President  has  been  in  bed  for  nearly  a  week  and 
Doctor  Gray  son  permitted  no  one  to  see  him  but  me. 
Yesterday  before  I  left  he  was  feeling  so  well  that  I 
asked  him  if  he  did  not  want  to  feel  better  and  then  I 
read  him  your  letters.  Mrs.  Wilson  was  present. 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  pleased  he  was.  He  laughed  re- 
peatedly at  the  different  comments  you  made  and  he  was 
delighted  with  what  you  had  to  say  concerning  Lord 
Cowdray.  We  do  not  love  him  for  we  think  that  be- 
tween Cowdray  and  Garden  a  large  part  of  our  troubles  in 
Mexico  has  been  made.  Your  description  of  his  attitude 
at  the  beginning  and  his  present  one  pleased  us  much. 

After  I  had  read  the  confidential  letter  the  President 
said  "now  let  me  see  if  I  have  the  facts."  He  then  re- 
cited them  in  consecutive  order  just  as  the  English  lady 
had  written  them,  almost  using  the  same  phrases,  showing 


PERSONALITIES   OF  THE   MEXICAN   PROBLEM         219 

the  well-trained  mind  that  he  has.     I  then  dropped  the 
letter  in  the  grate. 

He  enjoyed  heartily  the  expression  "Washington  is  a 
deep  hole  of  silence  towards  ambassadors,"  and  again 
"The  volume  of  silence  that  I  get  is  oppressive,"  and  of 
course  the  story  apropos  of  this  last  remark. 

I  was  with  him  for  more  than  an  hour  and  he  was  dis- 
tinctly better  when  I  left.  I  hated  to  look  at  him  in 
bed  for  I  could  not  help  realizing  what  his  life  means  to 
the  Democratic  Party,  to  the  Nation  and  almost  to  the 
world. 

Of  course  you  know  that  I  only  read  your  letters  to 
him.  Mr.  Bryan  was  my  guest  on  Wednesday  and  I 
returned  to  Washington  with  him  but  I  made  no  mention 
of  our  correspondence  and  I  never  have.  The  President 
seems  to  like  our  way  of  doing  things  and  further  than 
that  I  do  not  care. 

Upon  my  soul  I  do  not  believe  the  President  could  be 
better  pleased  than  he  is  with  the  work  you  are  doing. 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

From  now  on  the  Ambassador  exerted  a  round-about 
pressure — the  method  of  "gradual  approach"  already  re- 
ferred to — upon  the  Foreign  Office  for  Garden's  removal. 
An  extract  from  a  letter  to  the  President  gives  a  hint 
concerning  this  method: 

I  have  already  worked  upon  Sir  Edward's  mind  about 
his  Minister  to  Mexico  as  far  as  I  could.  Now  that  the 
other  matter  is  settled  and  while  Garden  is  behaving,  I 
go  at  it.  Two  years  ago  Mr.  Knox  made  a  bad  blunder 
in  protesting  against  Garden's  "anti- Americanism"  in 
Cuba.  Mr.  Knox  sent  Mr.  Reid  no  definite  facts  nor  even 


220       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF    WALTER  H.    PAGE 

accusations  to  base  a  protest  on.  The  result  was  a  failure 
—a  bad  failure.  I  have  again  asked  Mr.  Bryan  for  all 
the  definite  reports  he  has  heard  about  Garden.  That 
man,  in  my  judgment,  has  caused  nine  tenths  of  the 
trouble  here. 

Naturally  Page  did  not  ask  the  Minister's  removal 
directly — that  would  have  been  an  unpardonable  blun- 
der. His  meetings  during  this  period  with  Sir  Edward 
were  taking  place  almost  every  day,  and  Garden,  in 
one  way  or  another,  kept  coming  to  the  front  in  their 
conversation.  Sir  Edward,  like  Page,  would  sacrifice 
much  in  the  cause  of  Anglo-American  relations;  Page 
would  occasionally  express  his  regret  that  the  Brit- 
ish Minister  to  Mexico  was  not  a  man  who  shared 
their  enthusiasm  on  this  subject;  in  numerous  other  ways 
the  impression  was  conveyed  that  the  two  countries 
could  solve  the  Mexican  entanglement  much  better  if  a 
more  congenial  person  represented  British  interests  in 
the  Southern  Republic.  This  reasoning  evidently  pro- 
duced the  desired  results.  In  early  January,  1914,  a 
hint  was  unofficially  conveyed  to  the  American  Ambas- 
sador that  Garden  was  to  be  summoned  to  London  for 
a  "conversation"  with  Sir  Edward  Grey,  and  that  his 
return  to  Mexico  would  depend  upon  the  outcome  of  that 
interview.  There  was  a  likelihood  that,  in  future,  Sir 
Lionel  Garden  would  represent  the  British  Empire  in 
Brazil. 

This  news,  sent  in  discreet  cipher  to  Washington,  de- 
lighted the  Administration.  "It  is  fine  about  Garden," 
wrote  Colonel  House  on  January  10th.  "I  knew  you  had 
done  it  when  I  saw  it  in  the  papers,  but  I  did  not  know  just 
how.  You  could  not  have  brought  it  about  in  a  more 
diplomatic  and  effectual  way." 


PERSONALITIES   OF  THE   MEXICAN   PROBLEM         221 

And  the  following  came  from  the  President: 

From  President  Wilson 

Pa^s  Christian, 

January  6,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  PAGE: 

I  have  your  letter  of  December  twenty-first,  which  I 
have  greatly  enjoyed. 

Almost  at  the  very  time  I  was  reading  it,  the  report 
came  through  the  Associated  Press  from  London  that 
Garden  was  to  be  transferred  immediately  to  Brazil. 
If  this  is  true,  it  is  indeed  a  most  fortunate  thing  and  I 
feel  sure  it  is  to  be  ascribed  to  your  tactful  and  yet  very 
plain  representations  to  Sir  Edward  Grey.  I  do  not 
think  you  realize  hew  hard  we  worked  to  get  from  either 
Lind  or  O'Shaughnessy1  definite  items  of  speech  or  con- 
duct which  we  could  furnish  you  as  material  for  what  you 
had  to  say  to  the  Ministers  about  Garden.  It  simply 
was  not  obtainable.  Everything  that  we  got  was  at 
second  or  third  hand.  That  he  was  working  against 
us  was  too  plain  for  denial,  and  yet  he  seems  to  have  done 
it  in  a  very  astute  way  which  nobody  could  take  direct 
hold  of.  I  congratulate  you  with  all  my  heart  on  his 
transference. 

I  long,  as  you  do,  for  an  opportunity  to  do  constructive 
work  all  along  the  line  in  our  foreign  relations,  particu- 
larly with  Great  Britain  and  the  Latin-American  states, 
but  surely,  my  dear  fellow,  you  are  deceiving  yourself  in 
supposing  that  constructive  work  is  not  now  actually  going 
on,  and  going  on  at  your  hands  quite  as  much  as  at  ours. 
The  change  of  attitude  and  the  growing  ability  to  under- 
stand what  we  are  thinking  about  and  purposing  on  the 
part  of  the  official  circle  in  London  is  directly  attributable 

JMr.  Nelson  O'Shaughne-asy,  Charge  d' Affaires  in  Mexico. 


222       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

to  what  you  have  been  doing,  and  I  feel  more  and  more 
grateful  every  day  that  you  are  our  spokesman  and  in- 
terpreter there.  This  is  the  only  possible  constructive 
work  in  foreign  affairs,  aside  from  definite  acts  of  policy. 

So  far  as  the  policy  is  concerned,  you  may  be  sure  I 
will  strive  to  the  utmost  to  obtain  both  a  repeal  of  the 
discrimination  in  the  matter  of  tolls  and  a  renewal  of  the 
arbitration  treaties,  and  I  am  not  without  hope  that  I 
can  accomplish  both  at  this  session.  Indeed  this  is  the 
session  in  which  these  things  must  be  done  if  they  are  to 
be  done  at  all. 

Back  of  the  smile  which  came  to  my  face  when  you 
spoke  of  the  impenetrable  silence  of  the  State  Department 
toward  its  foreign  representatives  lay  thoughts  of  very 
serious  concern.  We  must  certainly  manage  to  keep  our 
foreign  representatives  properly  informed.  The  real 
trouble  is  to  conduct  genuinely  confidential  correspond- 
ence except  through  private  letters,  but  surely  the  thing 
can  be  changed  and  it  will  be  if  I  can  manage  it. 

We  are  deeply  indebted  to  you  for  your  kindness  and 
generous  hospitality  to  our  young  folks1  and  we  have 
learned  with  delight  through  your  letters  and  theirs  of 
their  happy  days  in  England. 

With  deep  regard  and  appreciation, 

Cordially  and  faithfully  yours, 

WOODROW  WILSON. 
HON.  WALTER  H.  PAGE, 

American  Embassy, 
London,  England. 

Yet  for  the  American  Ambassador  the  experience  was 
not  one  of  unmixed  satisfaction.  These  letters  have 
contained  references  to  the  demoralized  condition  of  the 

1Mr.  and  Mrs.  Francis  B.  Sayre. 


PERSONALITIES   OF  THE    MEXICAN   PROBLEM         223 

State  Department  under  Mr.  Bryan  and  the  succeeding 
ones  will  contain  more;  the  Garden  episode  portrayed  the 
stupidity  and  ignorance  of  that  Department  at  their 
worst.  By  commanding  Garden  to  cease  his  anti- 
American  tactics  and  to  support  the  American  policy  the 
Foreign  Office  had  performed  an  act  of  the  utmost 
courtesy  and  consideration  to  this  country.  By  quietly 
"promoting"  the  same  minister  to  another  sphere, 
several  thousand  miles  away  from  Mexico  and  Washing- 
ton, it  was  now  preparing  to  eliminate  all  possible  causes 
of  friction  between  the  two  countries.  The  British,  that 
is,  had  met  the  wishes  of  the  United  States  in  the  two 
great  matters  that  were  then  making  serious  trouble— 
Huerta  and  Garden.  Yet  no  government,  Great  Britain 
least  of  all,  wishes  to  be  placed  in  the  position  of  moving 
its  diplomats  about  at  the  request  of  another  Power. 
The  whole  deplorable  story  appears  in  the  following 
letter. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

January  8th,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  HOUSE: 

Two  days  ago  I  sent  a  telegram  to  the  Department 
saying  that  I  had  information  from  a  private,  unofficial 
source  that  the  report  that  Garden  would  be  transferred 
was  true,  and  from  another  source  that  Marling  would 
succeed  him.  The  Government  here  has  given  out 
nothing.  I  know  nothing  from  official  sources.  Of 
course  the  only  decent  thing  to  do  at  Washington  was  to 
sit  still  till  this  Government  should  see  fit  to  make  an 
announcement.  But  what  do  they  doP  Give  my  tele- 
gram to  the  press!  It  appears  here  almost  verbatim  in 
this  morning's  Mail. — I  have  to  make  an  humiliating 
explanation  to  the  Foreign  Office.  This  is  the  third 


224       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

time  I've  had  to  make  such  an  humiliating  explanation 
to  Sir  Edward.  It's  getting  a  little  monotonous.  He's 
getting  tired,  and  so  am  I.  They  now  deny  at  the  Foreign 
Office  that  anything  has  been  decided  about  Garden,  and 
this  meddling  by  us  (as  they  look  at  it)  will  surely  cause 
a  delay  and  may  even  cause  a  change  of  purpose. 

That's  the  practical  result  of  their  leaking  at  Washing- 
ton. On  a  previous  occasion  they  leaked  the  same  way. 
When  I  telegraphed  a  remonstrance,  they  telegraphed 
back  to  me  that  the  leak  had  been  here!  That  was  the 
end  of  it — except  that  I  had  to  explain  to  Sir  Edward  the 
best  I  could.  And  about  a  lesser  matter,  I  did  the  same 
thing  a  third  time,  in  a  conversation.  Three  times  this 
sort  of  thing  has  happened. — On  the  other  hand,  the 
King's  Master  of  Ceremonies  called  on  me  on  the  Presi- 
dent's Birthday  and  requested  for  His  Majesty  that  I 
send  His  Majesty's  congratulations.  Just  ten  days 
passed  before  a  telegraphic  answer  came!  The  very 
hour  it  came,  I  was  myself  making  up  an  answer  for  the 
President  that  I  was  going  to  send,  to  save  our  face. 

Now,  I'm  trying  with  all  my  might  to  do  this  job.  I 
spend  all  my  time,  all  my  ingenuity,  all  my  money  at  it. 
I  have  organized  my  staff  as  a  sort  of  Cabinet.  We  meet 
every  day.  We  go  over  everything  conceivable  that  we 
may  do  or  try  to  do.  We  do  good  team  work.  I  am  not 
sure  but  I  doubt  whether  these  secretaries  have  before 
been  taken  into  just  such  a  relation  to  their  chief.  They 
are  enthusiastic  and  ambitious  and  industrious  and — 
safe.  There's  no  possibility  of  any  leak.  We  arrange 
our  dinners  with  reference  to  the  possibility  of  getting 
information  and  of  carrying  points.  Mrs.  Page  gives  and 
accepts  invitations  with  the  same  end  in  view.  We're  on 
the  job  to  the  very  limit  of  our  abilities. 

And  I've  got  the  Foreign  Office  in  such  a  relation  that 


PERSONALITIES   OF   THE   MEXICAN   PROBLEM         225 

they  are  frank  and  friendly.  (I  can't  keep  'em  so,  if 
this  sort  of  thing  goes  on.) 

Now  the  State  Department  seems  (as  it  touches  us)  to 
be  utterly  chaotic — silent  when  it  ought  to  respond, 
loquacious  when  it  ought  to  be  silent.  There  are  ques- 
tions that  I  have  put  to  it  at  this  Government's  request 
to  which  I  can  get  no  answer. 

It's  hard  to  keep  my  staff  enthusiastic  under  these 
conditions.  When  I  reached  the  Chancery  this  morning, 
they  were  in  my  room,  with  all  the  morning  papers 
marked,  on  the  table,  eagerly  discussing  what  we  ought 
to  do  about  this  publication  of  my  dispatch.  The  en- 
thusiasm and  buoyancy  were  all  gone  out  of  them.  By 
their  looks  they  said,  "Oh !  what's  the  use  of  our  bestirring 
ourselves  to  send  news  to  Washington  when  they  use  it  to 
embarrass  usP" — While  we  are  thus  at  work,  the  only 
two  communications  from  the  Department  to-day  are 
two  letters  from  two  of  the  Secretaries  about — presenting 
"Democratic"  ladies  from  Texas  and  Oklahoma  at  court! 
And  Bryan  is  now  lecturing  in  Kansas. 

Since  I  began  to  write  this  letter,  Lord  Cowdray  came 
here  to  the  house  and  stayed  two  and  a  half  hours,  talking 
about  possible  joint  intervention  in  Mexico.  Possibly 
he  came  from  the  Foreign  Office.  I  don't  know  whether 
to  dare  send  a  despatch  to  the  State  Department,  telling 
what  he  told  me,  for  fear  they'd  leak.  And  to  leak  this — 
Good  Lord !  Two  of  the  Secretaries  were  here  to  dinner, 
and  I  asked  them  if  I  should  send  such  a  despatch.  They 
both  answered  instantly:  "No,  sir,  don't  dare:  write  it 
to  the  President."  I  said:  "No,  I  have  no  right  to 
bother  the  President  with  regular  business  nor  with  fre- 
quent letters."  To  that  they  agreed;  but  the  interesting 
and  somewhat  appalling  thing  is,  they're  actually  afraid  to 
have  a  confidential  despatch  go  to  the  State  Department. 


226       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

I  see  nothing  to  do  but  to  suggest  to  the  President  to 
put  somebody  in  the  Department  who  will  stay  there  and 
give  intelligent  attention  to  the  diplomatic  telegrams 
and  letters — some  conscientious  assistant  or  clerk.  For 
I  hear  mutterings,  somewhat  like  these  mutterings  of 
mine,  from  some  of  the  continental  embassies. — The  whole 
thing  is  disorganizing  and  demoralizing  beyond  descrip- 
tion. 

All  these  and  more  are  my  troubles.  I'll  take  care  of 
them.  But  remember  what  I  am  going  to  write  on  the 
next  sheet.  For  here  may  come  a  trouble  for  you: 

Mrs.  Page  has  learned  something  more  about  Secretary 
Bryan's  proposed  visit  here  in  the  spring.  He's  coming  to 
talk  his  peace  plan  which,  you  know,  is  a  sort  of  grape- 
juice  arbitration — a  distinct  step  backward  from  a  real 
arbitration  treaty.  Well,  if  he  comes  with  that,  when  you 
come  to  talk  about  reducing  armaments,  you'll  wish 
you'd  never  been  born.  Get  your  ingenuity  together, 
then,  and  prevent  that  visit.1 

Not  the  least  funny  thing  in  the  world  is — Senator  X 
turned  up  to-day.  As  he  danced  around  the  room  beg- 
ging everybody's  pardon  (nobody  knew  what  for)  he 
complimented  everybody  in  sight,  explained  the  forged 
letter,  dilated  on  state  politics,  set  the  Irish  question  on 
the  right  end,  cleared  Bacon2  of  all  hostility  to  me,  de- 
clined tea  because  he  had  insomnia  and  explained  just 
how  it  works  to  keep  you  awake,  danced  more  and  de- 
clared himself  happy  and  bowed  himself  out — well 
pleased.  He's  as  funny  a  cuss  as  I've  seen  in  many  a  day. 
Lord  Cowdray,  who  was  telling  Mexican  woes  to  Katha- 
rine in  the  corner,  looked  up  and  asked,  "Who's  the  little 

Colonel  House  succeeded  in  preventing  it. 

2Senator  Augustus  O.  Bacon,  of  Georgia  who  was  reported  to  nourish  ill-feeling 
toward  Page  for  his  authorship  of  "  The  Southerner." 


PERSONALITIES   OF  THE   MEXICAN   PROBLEM         227 

dancing  gentleman?"  Suppose  X  had  known  he  was 
dancing  for — Lord  Cowdray's  amusement,  what  do  y'  sup- 
pose he'd  've  thought?  There  are  some  strange  com- 
binations in  our  house  on  Mrs.  Page's  days  at  home. 
Cowdray  has,  I  am  sure,  lost  (that  is,  failed  to  make)  a 
hundred  million  dollars  that  he  had  within  easy  reach  by 
this  Wilson  Doctrine,  but  he's  game.  He  doesn't  lie 
awake.  He's  a  dead-game  sport,  and  he  knows  he's 
knocked  out  in  that  quarter  and  he  doesn't  squeal.  His 
experiences  will  serve  us  many  a  good  turn  in  the  future — 
as  a  warning.  I  rather  like  him.  He  eats  out  of  my 
hand  in  the  afternoon  and  has  one  of  his  papers  jump  on 
me  in  the  morning.  Some  time  in  the  twenty-four  hours, 
he  must  attain  about  the  normal  temperature — say 
about  noon.  He  admires  the  President  greatly — sin- 
cerely. Force  meets  force,  you  see.  With  the  President 
behind  me  I  could  really  enjoy  Cowdray  centuries  after 
X  had  danced  himself  into  oblivion. 

By  the  way,  Cowdray  said  to  me  to-day:  "Whatever 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  agree  on  the  world 
must  do."  He's  right.  (1)  The  President  must  come 
here,  perhaps  in  his  second  term;  (2)  these  two  Govern- 
ments must  enter  a  compact  for  peace  and  for  gradual 
disarmament.  Then  we  can  go  about  our  business  for 

(say)  a  hundred  years. 

Heartily,          w  R  p 

In  spite  of  the  continued  pressure  of  the  United  States 
and  the  passive  support  of  its  anti-Huerta  policy  by 
Great  Britain,  the  Mexican  usurper  refused  to  resign. 
President  Wilson  now  began  to  espouse  the  interests  of 
Villa  and  Carranza.  His  letters  to  Page  indicate  that 
he  took  these  men  at  their  own  valuation,  believed  that 
they  were  sincere  patriots  working  for  the  cause  of 


228       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

democracy"  and  "constitutionalism"  and  that  their  tri- 
umph would  usher  in  a  day  of  enlightenment  and  progress 
for  Mexico.  It  was  the  opinion  of  the  Foreign  Office 
that  Villa  and  Carranza  were  worse  men  than  Huerta 
and  that  any  recognition  of  their  revolutionary  activities 
would  represent  no  moral  gain. 

From  President  Wilson 

The  White  House,  Washington, 

May  18, 1914. 
MY  DEAR  PAGE: 

.  .  .  As  to  the  attitude  of  mind  on  that  side  of  the 
water  toward  the  Constitutionalists,  it  is  based  upon  preju- 
dices which  cannot  be  sustained  by  the  facts.  I  am  enclos- 
ing a  copy  of  an  interview  by  a  Mr.  Reid1  which  appeared 
in  one  of  the  afternoon  papers  recently  and  which  sums  up 
as  well  as  they  could  be  summed  up  my  own  conclusions 
with  regard  to  the  issues  and  the  personnel  of  the  pend- 
ing contest  in  Mexico.  I  can  verify  it  from  a  hundred 
different  sources,  most  of  them  sources  not  in  the  least 
touched  by  predilections  for  such  men  as  our  friends  in 
London  have  supposed  Carranza  and  Villa  to  be. 

Cordially  and  faithfully  yours, 

WOODROW  WILSON. 
HON.  WALTER  H.  PAGE, 
U.  S.  Embassy, 
London,  England. 

The  White  House,  Washington, 

June  1, 1914. 
MY  DEAR  PAGE: 

.  .  .  The  fundamental  thing  is  that  they  (British 
critics  of  Villa)  are  all  radically  mistaken.  There  has 

iProbably  an  error  for  John  Reed,  at  that  time  a  newspaper  correspondent  in 
Mexico — afterward  well  known  as  a  champion  of  the  Bolshevist  regime  in  Russia. 


PERSONALITIES   OF  THE   MEXICAN   PROBLEM         229 

been  less  disorder  and  less  danger  to  life  where  the  Con- 
stitutionalists have  gained  control  than  there  has  been 
where  Huerta  is  in  control.  I  should  think  that  if  they 
are  getting  correct  advices  from  Tampico,  people  in 
England  would  be  very  much  enlightened  by  what  has 
happened  there.  Before  the  Constitutionalists  took  the 
place  there  was  constant  danger  to  the  oil  properties 
and  to  foreign  residents.  Now  there  is  no  danger 
and  the  men  who  felt  obliged  to  leave  the  oil  wells  to 
their  Mexican  employees  are  returning,  to  find,  by 
the  way,  that  their  Mexican  employees  guarded  them 
most  faithfully  without  wages,  and  in  some  instances 
almost  without  food.  I  am  told  that  the  Constitution- 
alists cheered  the  American  flag  when  they  entered  Tam- 
pico. 

I  believe  that  Mexico  City  will  be  much  quieter  and  a 
much  safer  place  to  live  in  after  the  Constitutionalists 
get  there  than  it  is  now.  The  men  who  are  approaching 
and  are  sure  to  reach  it  are  much  less  savage  and  much 
more  capable  of  government  than  Huerta. 

These,  I  need  not  tell  you,  are  not  fancies  of  mine  but 
conclusions  I  have  drawn  from  facts  which  are  at  last 
becoming  very  plain  and  palpable,  at  least  to  us  on  this 
side  of  the  water.  If  they  are  not  becoming  plain  in 
Great  Britain,  it  is  because  their  papers  are  not  serving 
them  with  the  truth.  Our  own  papers  were  prejudiced 
enough  in  all  conscience  against  Villa  and  Carranza  and 
everything  that  was  happening  in  the  north  of  Mexico, 
but  at  last  the  light  is  dawning  on  them  in  spite  of  them- 
selves and  they  are  beginning  to  see  things  as  they  really 
are.  I  would  be  as  nervous  and  impatient  as  your 
friends  in  London  are  if  I  feared  the  same  things  that  they 
fear,  but  I  do  not.  I  am  convinced  that  even  Zapata 
would  restrain  his  followers  and  leave,  at  any  rate,  all 


230       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.   PAGE 

foreigners  and  all  foreign  property  untouched  if  he  were 
the  first  to  enter  Mexico  City. 

Cordially  and  faithfully  yours, 

WOODROW  WILSON. 
HON.  WALTER  H.  PAGE, 
American  Embassy, 
London,  England. 

On  this  issue,  however,  the  President  and  his  Ambas- 
sador to  Great  Britain  permanently  disagreed.  The 
events  which  took  place  in  April,  1914 — the  insult  to  the 
American  flag  at  Tampico,  the  bombardment  and  capture 
of  Vera  Cruz  by  American  forces — made  stronger  Page's 
conviction,  already  set  forth  in  this  correspondence,  that 
there  was  only  one  solution  of  the  Mexican  problem. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

April  27,  1914. 
DEAR  HOUSE: 

.  .  .  And,  as  for  war  with  Mexico — I  confess  I've 
had  a  continually  growing  fear  of  it  for  six  months.  I've 
no  confidence  in  the  Mexican  leaders — none  of  'em.  We 
shall  have  to  Cuba-ize  the  country,  which  means  thrash- 
->)  ing  'em  first — I  fear,  I  fear,  I  fear;  and  I  feel  sorry  for  us 
all,  the  President  in  particular.  It's  inexpressibly  hard 
fortune  for  him.  I  can't  tell  you  with  what  eager  fear 
we  look  for  despatches  every  day  and  twice  a  day  hurry 
to  get  the  newspapers.  All  England  believes  we've  got 
to  fight  it  out. 

Well,   the   English   are   with   us,   you   see.    Admiral 

Cradock,  I  understand,  does  not  approve  our  policy,  but 

A    he  stands  firmly  with  us  whatever  we  do.    The  word  to 

stand  firmly  with  us  has,  I  am  very  sure,  been  passed 

along  the  whole  line — naval,  newspaper,  financial,  dip- 


PERSONALITIES   OF  THE  MEXICAN  PROBLEM        231 

lomatic.  Garden  won't  give  us  any  more  trouble  during 
the  rest  of  his  stay  in  Mexico.  The  yellow  press's  abuse 
of  the  President  and  me  has  actually  helped  us  here. 

Heartily  yours, 

W.  H.  P. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HONOUR    AND    DISHONOUR    IN    PANAMA 

IN  THE  early  part  of  January,  1914,  Colonel  House 
wrote  Page,  asking  whether  he  would  consider  favour- 
ably an  offer  to  enter  President  Wilson's  Cabinet,  as 
Secretary  of  Agriculture.  Mr.  David  F.  Houston,  who 
was  then  most  acceptably  filling  that  position,  was  also 
an  authority  on  banking  and  finance;  the  plan  was  to 
make  him  governor  of  the  new  Federal  Reserve  Board, 
then  in  process  of  formation,  and  to  transfer  Page  to  the 
vacant  place  in  the  Cabinet.  The  proposal  was  not 
carried  through,  but  Page's  reply  took  the  form  of  a  re- 
view of  his  ambassadorship  up  to  date,  of  his  vexations, 
his  embarrassments,  his  successes,  and  especially  of  the 
very  important  task  which  still  lay  before  him.  There 
were  certain  reasons,  it  will  appear,  why  he  would  have 
liked  to  leave  London ;  and  there  was  one  impelling  reason 
why  he  preferred  to  stay.  From  the  day  of  his  arrival 
in  England,  Page  had  been  humiliated,  and  his  work  had 
been  constantly  impeded,  by  the  almost  studied  neglect 
with  which  Washington  treated  its  diplomatic  service. 
The  fact  that  the  American  Government  provided  no 
official  residence  for  its  Ambassador,  and  no  adequate 
financial  allowance  for  maintaining  the  office,  had  made 
his  position  almost  an  intolerable  one.  All  Page's  pre- 
decessors for  twenty-five  years  had  been  rich  men  who 
could  advance  the  cost  of  the  Embassy  from  their  own 
private  purses;  to  meet  these  expenses,  however,  Page 
had  been  obliged  to  encroach  on  the  savings  of  a  life- 

232 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  233 

time,  and  such  liberality  on  his  part  necessarily  had  its 
limitations. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

London,  England, 

February  13,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  HOUSE: 

.  .  .  Of  course  I  am  open  to  the  criticism  of  having 
taken  the  place  at  all.  But  I  was  both  uninformed  and 
misinformed  about  the  cost  as  well  as  about  the  frightful 
handicap  of  having  no  Embassy.  It's  a  kind  of  scandal 
in  London  and  it  has  its  serious  effect.  Everybody  talks 
about  it  all  the  time:  "Will  you  explain  to  me  why  it  is 
that  your  great  Government  has  no  Embassy:  it's  very 
odd ! "  *  *  What  a  frugal  Government  you  have ! "  "  It 's  a 
damned  mean  outfit,  your  American  Government."  Mrs. 
Page  collapses  many  an  evening  when  she  gets  to  her  room. 
"  If  they'd  only  quit  talking  about  it ! "  The  other  Ambas- 
sadors, now  that  we're  coming  to  know  them  fairly  well, 
commiserate  us.  It's  a  constant  humiliation.  Of  course 
this  aspect  of  it  doesn't  worry  me  much — I've  got  hard- 
ened to  it.  But  it  is  a  good  deal  of  a  real  handicap,  and 
it  adds  that  much  dead  weight  that  a  man  must  over- 
come; and  it  greatly  lessens  the  respect  in  which  our 
Government  and  its  Ambassador  are  held.  If  I  had 
known  this  fully  in  advance,  I  should  not  have  had  the 
courage  to  come  here.  Now,  of  course,  I've  got  used 
to  it,  have  discounted  it,  and  can  "bull"  it  through — 
could  "bull"  it  through  if  I  could  afford  to  pay  the  bill. 
But  I  shouldn't  advise  any  friend  of  mine  to  come  here 
and  face  this  humiliation  without  realizing  precisely  what 
it  means — wholly  apart,  of  course,  from  the  cost  of 
it.  ... 

My  dear  House,  on  the  present  basis  much  of  the  dip- 


234       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

lomatic  business  is  sheer  humbug.  It  will  always  be  so 
till  we  have  our  own  Embassies  and  an  established  posi- 
tion in  consequence.  Without  a  home  or  a  house  or  a 
fixed  background,  every  man  has  to  establish  his  own  posi- 
tion for  himself;  and  unless  he  be  unusual,  this  throws 
him  clean  out  of  the  way  of  giving  emphasis  to  the  right 
things.  .  .  . 

As  for  our  position,  I  think  I  don't  fool  myself.  The 
job  at  the  Foreign  Office  is  easy  because  there  is  no  real 
trouble  between  us,  and  because  Sir  Edward  Grey  is 
pretty  nearly  an  ideal  man  to  get  on  with.  I  think  he 
likes  me,  too,  because,  of  course,  I'm  straightforward  and 
frank  with  him,  and  he  likes  the  things  we  stand  for. 
Outside  this  official  part  of  the  job,  of  course,  we're  com- 
monplace— a  successful  commonplace,  I  hope.  But  that's 
all.  We  don't  know  how  to  try  to  be  anything  but  what 
we  naturally  are.  I  dare  say  we  are  laughed  at  here  and 
there  about  this  and  that.  Sometimes  I  hear  criticisms, 
now  and  then  more  or  less  serious  ones.  Much  of  it 
comes  of  our  greenness;  some  of  it  from  the  very  nature 
of  the  situation.  Those  who  expect  to  find  us  brilliant 
are,  of  course,  disappointed.  Nor  are  we  smart,  and  the 
smart  set  (both  American  and  English)  find  us  uninter- 
esting. But  we  drive  ahead  and  keep  a  philosophical 
temper  and  simply  do  the  best  we  can,  and,  you  may  be 
sure,  a  good  deal  of  it.  It  is  laborious.  For  instance, 
I've  made  two  trips  lately  to  speak  before  important 
bodies,  one  at  Leeds,  the  other  at  Newcastle,  at  both 
of  which,  in  different  ways,  I  have  tried  to  explain  the 
President's  principle  in  dealing  with  Central  American 
turbulent  states — and,  incidentally,  the  American  ideals 
of  government.  The  audiences  see  it,  approve  it,  ap- 
plaud it.  The  newspaper  editorial  writers  never  quite 
go  the  length — it  involves  a  denial  of  the  divine  right  of 


HONOUR  AND  DISHONOUR  IN   PANAMA  235 

the  British  Empire;  at  least  they  fear  so.  The  fewest 
possible  Englishmen  really  understand  our  governmental 
aims  and  ideals.  I  have  delivered  unnumbered  and  in- 
numerable little  speeches,  directly  or  indirectly,  about 
them;  and  they  seem  to  like  them.  But  it  would  take 
an  army  of  oratorical  ambassadors  a  lifetime  to  get  the 
idea  into  the  heads  of  them  all.  In  some  ways  they  are 
incredibly  far  back  in  medievalism — incredibly. 

If  I  have  to  leave  in  the  fall  or  in  December,  it  will  be 
said  and  thought  that  I've  failed,  unless  there  be  some 
reason  that  can  be  made  public.  I  should  be  perfectly 
willing  to  tell  the  reason — the  failure  of  the  Government 
to  make  it  financially  possible.  I've  nothing  to  conceal 
— only  definite  amounts.  I'd  never  say  what  it  has  cost 
— only  that  it  costs  more  than  I  or  anybody  but  a  rich 
man  can  afford.  If  then,  or  in  the  meantime,  the  Presi- 
dent should  wish  me  to  serve  elsewhere,  that  would,  of 
course,  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  my  going. 

Now  another  matter,  with  which  I  shall  not  bother  the 
President — he  has  enough  to  bear  on  that  score.  It  was 
announced  in  one  of  the  London  papers  the  other  day 
that  Mr.  Bryan  would  deliver  a  lecture  here,  and  prob- 
ably in  each  of  the  principal  European  capitals,  on  Peace. 
Now,  God  restrain  me  from  saying,  much  more  from 
doing,  anything  rash.  But  if  I've  got  to  go  home  at  all, 
I'd  rather  go  before  he  comes.  It'll  take  years  for  the 
American  Ambassadors  to  recover  what  they'll  lose  if 
he  carry  out  this  plan.  They  now  laugh  at  him  here. 
Only  the  President's  great  personality  saves  the  situation 
in  foreign  relations.  Of  course  the  public  here  doesn't 
know  how  utterly  unorganized  the  State  Department  is — 
how  we  can't  get  answers  to  important  questions,  and 
how  they  publish  most  secret  despatches  or  allow  them  to 
leak  out.  But  "bad  breaks"  like  this  occur.  Mr.  Z, 


236      THE   LIFE  AND   LETTERS  OF  WALTER   H.   PAGE 

of  the  100-years'-Peace  Committee,1  came  here  a  week 
ago,  with  a  letter  from  Bryan  to  the  Prime  Minister!  Z  told 
me  that  this  100-year  business  gave  a  chance  to  bind  the 
nations  together  that  ought  not  to  be  missed.  Hence  Bryan 
had  asked  him  to  take  up  the  relations  of  the  countries 
with  the  Prime  Minister!  Bryan  sent  a  telegram  to  Z 
to  be  read  at  a  big  100-year  meeting  here.  As  for  the 
personal  indignity  to  me  —  I  overlook  that.  I  don't  think 
he  means  it.  But  if  he  doesn't  mean  it,  what  does  he  mean  ? 
That's  what  the  Prime  Minister  asks  himself.  Fortunately 
Mr.  Asquith  and  I  get  along  mighty  well.  He  met  Bryan 
once,  and  he  told  me  with  a  smile  that  he  regarded  him  as 
"a  peculiar  product  of  your  country."  But  the  Secretary 
is  always  doing  things  like  this.  He  dashes  off  letters  of 
introduction  to  people  asking  me  to  present  them  to  Mr. 
Asquith,  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  etc. 

In  the  United  States  we  know  Mr.  Bryan.  We  know 
his  good  points,  his  good  services,  his  good  intentions. 
We  not  only  tolerate  him;  we  like  him.  But  when  he 
comes  here  as  "the  American  Prime  Minister"2  —  good- 
bye, John  I  All  that  we've  tried  to  do  to  gain  respect  for 
our  Government  (as  they  respect  our  great  nation)  will 
disappear  in  one  day.  Of  course  they'll  feel  obliged  to 
give  him  big  official  dinners,  etc.  And  - 

Now  you'd  just  as  well  abandon  your  trip  if  he  comes  ; 
and  (I  confess)  I'd  rather  be  gone.  No  member  of  an- 
other government  ever  came  here  and  lectured.  T.  R. 
did  it  as  a  private  citizen,  and  even  then  he  split  the 
heavens  asunder.3  Most  Englishmen  will  regard  it  as  a 


Committee  to  celebrate  the  centennial  of  the  signing  of  the  Treaty  of 
Ghent,  which  ended  the  War  of  1812.  The  plan  to  make  this  an  elaborate  com- 
memoration of  a  100  years'  peace  between  the  English-speaking  peoples  was  upset 
by  the  outbreak  of  the  World  War. 

^his  was  the  designation  Mr.  Bryan's  admirers  sometimes  gave  him. 

3The  reference  is  to  President  Roosevelt's  speech  at  the  Guildhall  in  June,  1910. 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  237 

piece  of  effrontery.  Of  course,  I'm  not  in  the  least  con- 
cerned about  mere  matters  of  taste.  It's  only  the  bigger 
effects  that  I  have  in  mind  in  queering  our  Government  in 
their  eyes.  He  must  be  kept  at  home  on  the  Mexican 
problem,  or  some  other. 

Yours  faithfully, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

P.  S.  But,  by  George,  it's  a  fine  game !  This  Govern- 
ment and  ours  are  standing  together  all  right,  especially 
since  the  President  has  taken  hold  of  our  foreign  relations 
himself.  With  such  a  man  at  the  helm  at  home,  we  can 
do  whatever  we  wish  to  do  with  the  English,  as  I've  often 
told  you.  (But  it  raises  doubts  every  time  the  shoe- 
string necktie,  broad-brimmed  black  hat,  oratorical,  old- 
time,  River  Platte  kind  of  note  is  heard.)  We've  come 
a  long  way  in  a  year — a  very  joyful  long  way,  full  of 
progress  and  real  understanding;  there's  no  doubt  about 
that.  A  year  ago  they  knew  very  well  the  failure  that 
had  saddled  them  with  the  tolls  trouble  and  the  failure 
of  arbitration,  and  an  unknown  President  had  just  come 
in.  Presently  an  unknown  Ambassador  arrived.  Mexico 
got  worse;  would  we  not  recognize  Huerta?  They  send 
Garden.  We  had  nothing  to  say  about  the  tolls — simply 
asked  for  time.  They  were  very  friendly;  but  our  slang 
phrase  fits  the  situation — "nothin'  doin'."  They  declined 
San  Francisco.1  Then  presently  they  began  to  see  some 
plan  in  Mexico;  they  began  to  see  our  attitude  on  the 
tolls;  they  began  to  understand  our  attitude  toward  con- 
cessions and  governments  run  for  profit ;  they  began  dimly 
to  see  that  Garden  was  a  misfit;  the  Tariff  Bill  passed; 
the  Currency  Bill;  the  President  loomed  up;  even  the 

lrrhis  refers  to  the  declination  of  the  British  Government  to  be  represented  at 
the  San  Francisco  world  exhibition,  held  in  1915. 


238       THE   LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Ambassador,  they  said,  really  believed  what  he  preached ; 
he  wasn't  merely  making  pretty,  friendly  speeches. — Now, 
when  we  get  this  tolls  job  done,  we've  got  'em  where  we 
can  do  any  proper  and  reasonable  thing  we  want.  It's 
been  a  great  three  quarters  of  a  year — immense,  in  fact. 
No  man  has  been  in  the  White  House  who  is  so  regarded 
since  Lincoln;  in  fact,  they  didn't  regard  Lincoln  while  he 
lived. 

Meantime,  I've  got  to  be  more  or  less  at  home.  The 
Prime  Minister  dines  with  me,  the  Foreign  Secretary,  the 
Archbishop,  the  Colonial  Secretary — all  the  rest  of  'em; 
the  King  talks  very  freely ;  Mr.  Asquith  tells  me  some  of 
his  troubles;  Sir  Edward  is  become  a  good  personal  friend; 
Lord  Bryce  warms  up ;  the  Lord  Chancellor  is  chummy ; 
and  so  it  goes. 

So  you  may  be  sure  we  are  all  in  high  feather  after  all; 
and  the  President's  (I  fear  exaggerated)  appreciation  of 
what  I've  done  is  very  gratifying  indeed.  I've  got  only 
one  emotion  about  it  all — gratitude ;  and  gratitude  begets 
eagerness  to  go  on.  Of  course  I  can  do  future  jobs  better 
than  I  have  done  any  past  ones. 

There  are  two  shadows  in  the  background — not  dis- 
turbing, but  shadows  none  the  less : 

1.  The  constant  reminder  that  the  American  Am- 
bassador's homeless  position  (to  this  Government  and  to 
this  whole  people)  shows  that  the  American  Government 
and  the  American  people  know  nothing  about  foreign 
relations  and  care  nothing — regard  them  as  not  worth 
buying  a  house  for.  This  leaves  a  doubt  about  any  con- 
tinuity of  any  American  policy.  It  even  suggests  a  sort 
of  fear  that  we  don't  really  care. 

The  other  is  (2)  the  dispiriting  experience  of  writing 
and  telegraphing  about  important  things  and  never  hear- 
ing a  word  concerning  many  of  them,  and  the  consequent 


HONOUR  AND  DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  239 

fear  of  some  dead  bad  break  in  the  State  Department. 
The  clubs  are  full  of  stories  of  the  silly  and  incredible 
things  that  are  said  to  happen  there. 

After  all,  these  are  old  troubles.  They  are  not  new  — 
neither  of  them.  And  we  are  the  happiest  group  you 
ever  saw. 

W.  H.  P. 

Page's  letters  of  this  period  contain  many  references  to 
his  inability  to  maintain  touch  with  the  State  Department. 
His  letters  remained  unacknowledged,  his  telegrams  un- 
answered ;  and  he  was  himself  left  completely  in  the  dark 
as  to  the  plans  and  opinions  at  Washington. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

February  28,  1914. 
DEAR  HOUSE  : 

.  .  .  Couldn't  the  business  with  Great  Britain  be  put 
into  Moore's1  hands?  It  is  surely  important  enough  at 
times  to  warrant  separate  attention  —  or  (I  might  say) 
attention.  You  know,  after  eight  or  nine  months  of  this 
sort  of  thing,  the  feeling  grows  on  us  all  here  that  perhaps 
many  of  our  telegrams  and  letters  may  not  be  read  by 
anybody  at  all.  You  begin  to  feel  that  they  may  not  be 
deciphered  or  even  opened.  Then  comes  the  feeling 
(for  a  moment),  why  send  any  more?  Why  do  anything 
but  answer  such  questions  as  come  now  and  then?  Cor- 
responding with  Nobody  —  can  you  imagine  how  that 
feels?  —  What  the  devil  do  you  suppose  does  become  of  the 
letters  and  telegrams  that  I  send,  from  which  and  about 
which  I  never  hear  a  word?  As  a  mere  matter  of  curi- 
osity I  should  like  to  know  who  receives  them  and  what 
he  does  with  them! 


Bassett  Moore,  at  that  time  the  very  able  counsellor  of  the  State  Depart- 
ment. 


240       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

I've  a  great  mind  some  day  to  send  a  despatch  saying 
that  an  earthquake  has  swallowed  up  the  Thames,  that 
a  suffragette  has  kissed  the  King,  and  that  the  statue  of 
Cromwell  has  made  an  assault  on  the  House  of  Lords- 
just  to  see  if  anybody  deciphers  it. 

After  the  Civil  War  an  old  fellow  in  Virginia  was  tired 
of  the  world.  He'd  have  no  more  to  do  with  it.  He 
cut  a  slit  in  a  box  in  his  house  and  nailed  up  the  box. 
Whenever  a  letter  came  for  him,  he'd  read  the  postmark 
and  say  "Baltimore — Baltimore — there  isn't  anybody  in 
Baltimore  that  I  care  to  hear  from."  Then  he'd  drop 
the  letter  unopened  through  the  slit  into  the  box.  "  Phil- 
adelphia? I  have  no  friend  in  Philadelphia" — into  the 
box,  unopened.  When  he  died,  the  big  box  was  nearly 
full  of  unopened  letters.  When  I  get  to  Washington 
again,  I'm  going  to  look  for  a  big  box  that  must  now  be 
nearly  full  of  my  unopened  letters  and  telegrams. 

W.  H.  P. 

The  real  reason  why  the  Ambassador  wished  to  remain 
in  London  was  to  assist  in  undoing  a  great  wrong  which 
the  United  States  had  done  itself  and  the  world.  Page 
was  attempting  to  perform  his  part  in  introducing  new 
standards  into  diplomacy.  His  discussions  of  Mexico 
had  taken  the  form  of  that  "idealism"  which  he  was  ap- 
parently having  some  difficulty  in  persuading  British 
statesmen  and  the  British  public  to  accept.  He  was 
doing  his  best  to  help  bring  about  that  day  when,  in 
Gladstone's  famous  words,  "  the  idea  of  public  right  would 
be  the  governing  idea"  of  international  relations.  But 
while  the  American  Ambassador  was  preaching  this  new 
conception,  the  position  of  his  own  country  on  one  im- 
portant matter  was  a  constant  impediment  to  his  efforts. 
Page  was  continually  confronted  by  the  fact  that  the 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  241 

United  States,  high-minded  as  its  foreign  policy  might 
pretend  to  be,  was  far  from  "idealistic"  in  the  observance 
of  the  treaty  that  it  had  made  with  Great  Britain  con- 
cerning the  Panama  Canal.  There  was  a  certain  em- 
barrassment involved  in  preaching  unselfishness  in  Mex- 
ico and  Central  America  at  a  time  when  the  United  States 
was  practising  selfishness  and  dishonesty  in  Panama. 
For,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Ambassador  and  that  of  most 
other  dispassionate  students  of  the  Panama  treaty,  the 
American  policy  on  Panama  tolls  amounted  to  nothing 
less. 

To  one  unskilled  in  legal  technicalities,  the  Panama 
controversy  involved  no  great  difficulty.  Since  1850  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain  had  had  a  written  under- 
standing upon  the  construction  of  the  Panama  Canal. 
The  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty,  which  was  adopted  that  year, 
provided  that  the  two  countries  should  share  equally  in 
the  construction  and  control  of  the  proposed  waterway 
across  the  Isthmus.  This  idea  of  joint  control  had  always 
rankled  in  the  United  States,  and  in  1901  the  American 
Government  persuaded  Great  Britain  to  abrogate  the 
Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty  and  agree  to  another — the  Hay- 
Pauncefote — which  transferred  the  rights  of  ownership 
and  construction  exclusively  to  this  country.  In  con- 
senting to  this  important  change,  Great  Britain  had  made 
only  one  stipulation.  "The  Canal,"  so  read  Article  III 
of  the  Convention  of  1901,  "shall  be  free  and  open  to 
the  vessels  of  commerce  and  war  of  all  nations  observing 
these  rules,  on  terms  of  entire  equality,  so  that  there 
shall  be  no  discrimination  against  any  such  nation,  or  its 
citizens  or  subjects,  in  respect  of  the  conditions  or  charges 
of  traffic,  or  otherwise."  It  would  seem  as  though  the 
English  language  could  utter  no  thought  more  clearly 
than  this.  The  agreement  said,  not  inferentially,  but  in 


242       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

so  many  words,  that  the  "charges"  levied  on  the  ships 
of  "all  nations"  that  used  the  Canal  should  be  the  same. 
The  history  of  British- American  negotiations  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Canal  had  always  emphasized  this  same  point. 
All  American  witnesses  to  drawing  the  Treaty  have  testi- 
fied that  this  was  the  American  understanding.  The 
correspondence  of  John  Hay,  who  was  Secretary  of 
State  at  the  time,  makes  it  clear  that  this  was  the  agree- 
ment. Mr.  Elihu  Root,  who,  as  Secretary  of  War,  sat 
next  to  John  Hay  in  the  Cabinet  which  authorized  the 
treaty,  has  taken  the  same  stand.  The  man  who  con- 
ducted the  preliminary  negotiations  with  Lord  Salisbury, 
Mr.  Henry  White,  has  emphasized  the  same  point.  Mr. 
Joseph  H.  Choate,  who,  as  American  Ambassador  to 
Great  Britain  in  1901,  had  charge  of  the  negotiations, 
has  testified  that  the  British  and  American  Governments 
"meant  what  they  said  and  said  what  they  meant." 

In  the  face  of  this  solemn  understanding,  the  American 
Congress,  in  1912,  passed  the  Panama  Canal  Act,  which 
provided  that  "no  tolls  shall  be  levied  upon  vessels  en- 
gaged in  the  coastwise  trade  of  the  United  States."  A 
technical  argument,  based  upon  the  theory  that  "all 
nations"  did  not  include  the  United  States,  and  that, 
inasmuch  as  this  country  had  obtained  sovereign  rights 
upon  the  Isthmus,  the  situation  had  changed,  persuaded 
President  Taft  to  sign  this  bill.  Perhaps  this  line  of 
reasoning  satisfied  the  legal  consciences  of  President 
Taft  and  Mr.  Knox,  his  Secretary  of  State,  but  it  really 
cut  little  figure  in  the  acrimonious  discussion  that  en- 
sued. Of  course,  there  was  only  one  question  involved; 
that  was  as  to  whether  the  exemption  violated  the  Treaty. 
This  is  precisely  the  one  point  that  nearly  all  the  con- 
troversialists avoided.  The  statement  that  the  United 
States  had  built  the  Canal  with  its  own  money  and  its 


HONOUR  AND  DISHONOUR  IN  PANAMA       243 

own  genius,  that  it  had  achieved  a  great  success  where 
other  nations  had  achieved  a  great  failure,  and  that  it 
had  the  right  of  passing  its  own  ships  through  its  own 
highway  without  assessing  tolls — this  was  apparently  ar- 
gument enough.  When  Great  Britain  protested  the  exemp- 
tion as  a  violation  of  the  Treaty,  there  were  not  lacking 
plenty  of  elements  in  American  politics  and  journalism 
to  denounce  her  as  committing  an  act  of  high-handed 
impertinence,  as  having  intruded  herself  in  matters  which 
were  not  properly  her  concern,  and  as  having  attempted 
to  rob  the  American  public  of  the  fruits  of  its  own  enter- 
prise. That  animosity  to  Great  Britain,  which  is  always 
present  in  certain  parts  of  the  hyphenated  population, 
burst  into  full  flame. 

Clear  as  were  the  legal  aspects  of  the  dispute,  the  po- 
sition of  the  Wilson  Administration  was  a  difficult  one. 
The  Irish-American  elements,  which  have  specialized  in 
making  trouble  between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain,  represented  a  strength  to  the  Democratic  Party 
in  most  large  cities.  The  great  mass  of  Democratic 
Senators  and  Congressmen  had  voted  for  the  exemption 
bill.  The  Democratic  platform  of  1912  had  endorsed 
this  same  legislation.  This  declaration  was  the  handi- 
work of  Senator  0' Gorman,  of  New  York  State,  who  had 
long  been  a  leader  of  the  anti-British  crusade  in  American 
politics.  More  awkward  still,  President  Wilson,  in  the 
course  of  his  Presidential  campaign,  had  himself  spoken 
approvingly  of  free  tolls  for  American  ships.  The  prob- 
ability is  that,  when  the  President  made  this  unfortunate 
reference  to  this  clause  in  the  Democratic  programme,  he 
had  given  the  matter  little  personal  investigation;  it 
must  be  held  to  his  credit  that,  when  the  facts  were  clearly 
presented  to  him,  his  mind  quickly  grasped  the  real  point 
at  issue — that  it  was  not  a  matter  of  commercial  advan- 


244      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

tage  or  disadvantage,  but  one  simply  of  national  honour, 
of  whether  the  United  States  proposed  to  keep  its  word  or 
to  break  it. 

Page's  contempt  for  the  hair-drawn  technicalities  of 
lawyers  was  profound,  and  the  tortuous  effort  to  make  the 
Hay-Pauncefote  Treaty  mean  something  quite  different 
from  what  it  said,  inevitably  moved  him  to  righteous 
wrath.  Before  sailing  for  England  he  spent  several 
days  in  the  State  Department  studying  the  several 
questions  that  were  then  at  issue  between  his  country 
and  Great  Britain.  A  memorandum  contains  his  im- 
pressions of  the  free  tolls  contention: 

"A  little  later  I  went  to  Washington  again  to  acquaint 
myself  with  the  business  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain.  About  that  time  the  Senate  confirmed 
my  appointment,  and  I  spent  a  number  of  days  reading 
the  recent  correspondence  between  the  two  governments. 
The  two  documents  that  stand  out  in  my  memory  are  the 
wretched  lawyer's  note  of  Knox  about  the  Panama  tolls 
(I  never  read  a  less  sincere,  less  convincing,  more  purely 
artificial  argument)  and  Bryce's  brief  reply,  which  did 
have  the  ring  of  sincerity  in  it.  The  diplomatic  cor- 
respondence in  general  seemed  to  me  very  dull  stuff,  and, 
after  wading  through  it  all  day,  on  several  nights  as  I 
went  to  bed  the  thought  came  to  me  whether  this  sort  of 
activity  were  really  worth  a  man's  while." 

Anything  which  affected  British  shipping  adversely 
touched  Great  Britain  in  a  sensitive  spot;  and  Page  had 
not  been  long  in  London  before  he  perceived  the  acute 
nature  of  the  Panama  situation.  In  July,  1913,  Col. 
Edward  M.  House  reached  the  British  capital.  A  let- 
ter of  Page's  to  Sir  Edward  Grey  gives  such  a  succinct 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  245 

description  of  this  new  and  influential  force  in  American 
public  life  that  it  is  worth  quoting: 

To  Sir  Edward  Grey 

Coburg  Hotel,  London. 

[No  date.] 
DEAR  SIR  EDWARD: 

There  is  an  American  gentleman  in  London,  the  like 
of  whom  I  do  not  know.  Mr.  Edward  M.  House  is  his 
name.  He  is  "the  silent  partner"  of  President  Wilson — 
that  is  to  say,  he  is  the  most  trusted  political  adviser  and 
the  nearest  friend  of  the  President.  He  is  a  private 
citizen,  a  man  without  personal  political  ambition,  a 
modest,  quiet,  even  shy  fellow.  He  helps  to  make  Cabi- 
nets, to  shape  policies,  to  select  judges  and  ambassadors 
and  suchlike  merely  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  that  these 
tasks  are  well  done. 

He  is  suffering  from  over-indulgence  in  advising,  and 
he  has  come  here  to  rest.  I  cannot  get  him  far  outside 
his  hotel,  for  he  cares  to  see  few  people.  But  he  is  very 
eager  to  meet  you. 

I  wonder  if  you  would  do  me  the  honour  to  take  lunch- 
eon at  the  Coburg  Hotel  with  me,  to  meet  him  either  on 
July  1,  or  3,  or  5 — if  you  happen  to  be  free?  I  shall 
have  only  you  and  Mr.  House. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

The  chief  reason  why  Colonel  House  wished  to  meet 
the  British  Foreign  Secretary  was  to  bring  him  a  message 
from  President  Wilson  on  the  subject  of  the  Panama 
tolls.  The  three  men — Sir  Edward,  Colonel  House,  and 
Mr.  Page — met  at  the  suggested  luncheon  on  July  3rd. 


246       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Colonel  House  informed  the  Foreign  Secretary  that  Presi- 
V  dent  Wilson  was  now  convinced  that  the  Panama  Act  vio- 
lated the  Hay-Pauncefote  Treaty  and  that  he  intended  to 
use  all  his  influence  to  secure  its  repeal.  The  matter,  the 
American  urged,  was  a  difficult  one,  since  it  would  be 
necessary  to  persuade  Congress  to  pass  a  law  acknowl- 
edging its  mistake.  The  best  way  in  which  Great  Britain 
could  aid  in  the  process  was  by  taking  no  public  action. 
If  the  British  should  keep  protesting  or  discussing  the 
subject  acrimoniously  in  the  press  and  Parliament,  such 
a  course  would  merely  reenforce  the  elements  that  would 
certainly  oppose  the  President.  Any  protests  would 
give  them  the  opportunity  to  set  up  the  cry  of  "British 
dictation,"  and  a  change  in  the  Washington  policy  would 
subject  it  to  the  criticism  of  having  yielded  to  British 
pressure.  The  inevitable  effect  would  be  to  defeat  the 
whole  proceeding.  Colonel  House  therefore  suggested 
that  President  Wilson  be  left  to  handle  the  matter  in  his 
own  way  and  in  his  own  time,  and  he  assured  the  British 
statesman  that  the  result  would  be  satisfactory  to  both 
countries.  Sir  Edward  Grey  at  once  saw  that  Colonel 
House's  statement  of  the  matter  was  simply  common 
sense,  and  expressed  his  willingness  to  leave  the  Panama 
matter  in  the  President's  hands. 

Thus,  from  July  3,  1913,  there  was  a  complete  under- 
standing between  the  British  Government  and  the  Wash- 
ington Administration  on  the  question  of  the  tolls.  But 
neither  the  British  nor  the  American  public  knew  that 
President  Wilson  had  pledged  himself  to  a  policy  of 
repeal.  All  during  the  summer  and  fall  of  1913  this 
matter  was  as  generally  discussed  in  England  as  was 
Mexico.  Everywhere  the  Ambassador  went — country 
houses,  London  dinner  tables,  the  colleges  and  the  clubs — 
he  was  constantly  confronted  with  what  was  universally 


HONOUR  AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  247 

regarded  as  America's  great  breach  of  faith.    How  deeply 
he  felt  in  the  matter  his  letters  show. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

August  25,  1913. 
DEAR  HOUSE: 

.  .  .  The  English  Government  and  the  English 
people  without  regard  to  party — I  hear  it  and  feel  it 
everywhere — are  of  one  mind  about  this:  they  think  we 
have  acted  dishonourably.  They  really  think  so — it 
isn't  any  mere  political  or  diplomatic  pretense.  We 
made  a  bargain,  they  say,  and  we  have  repudiated  it. 
If  it  were  a  mere  bluff  or  game  or  party  contention — 
that  would  be  one  thing.  We  could  "bull"  it  through 
or  live  it  down.  But  they  look  upon  it  as  we  look  upon 
the  repudiation  of  a  debt  by  a  state.  Whatever  the 
arguments  by  which  the  state  may  excuse  itself,  we  never 
feel  the  same  toward  it — never  quite  so  safe  about  it. 
They  say,  "You  are  a  wonderful  nation  and  a  wonderful 
people.  We  like  you.  But  your  Government  is  not  a 
government  of  honour.  Your  honourable  men  do  not 
seem  to  get  control."  You  can't  measure  the  damage 
that  this  does  us.  Whatever  the  United  States  may 
propose  till  this  is  fixed  and  forgotten  will  be  regarded 
with  a  certain  hesitancy.  They  will  not  fully  trust  the 
honour  of  our  Government.  They  say,  too,  "See,  you've 
preached  arbitration  and  you  propose  peace  agreements, 
and  yet  you  will  not  arbitrate  this:  you  know  you  are 
wrong,  and  this  attitude  proves  it."  Whatever  Mr. 
Hay  might  or  could  have  done,  he  made  a  bargain.  The 
Senate  ratified  it.  We  accepted  it.  Whether  it  were  a 
good  bargain  or  a  bad  one,  we  ought  to  keep  it.  The 
English  feeling  was  shown  just  the  other  week  when 
Senator  Root  received  an  honourary  degree  at  Oxford. 


248       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

The  thing  that  gave  him  fame  here  was  his  speech  on  this 
treaty.1  There  is  no  end  of  ways  in  which  they  show 
their  feeling  and  conviction. 

Now,  if  in  the  next  regular  session  the  President  takes 
a  firm  stand  against  the  ship  subsidy  that  this  discrimi- 
nation gives,  couldn't  Congress  be  carried  to  repeal  this 
discrimination?  For  this  economic  objection  also  exists. 

No  Ambassador  can  do  any  very  large  constructive 
piece  of  work  so  long  as  this  suspicion  of  the  honour  of 
our  Government  exists.  Sir  Edward  Grey  will  take  it 
up  in  October  or  November.  If  I  could  say  then  that 
the  President  will  exert  all  his  influence  for  this  repeal- 
that  would  go  far.  If,  when  he  takes  it  up,  I  can  say 
nothing,  it  will  be  practically  useless  for  me  to  take  up 
any  other  large  plan.  This  is  the  most  important  thing 
for  us  on  the  diplomatic  horizon. 

To  the  President 

Dornoch,  Scotland, 

September  10,  1913. 
DEAR  MR.  PRESIDENT: 

I  am  spending  ten  or  more  of  the  dog  days  visiting  the 
Englishman  and  the  Scotchman  in  their  proper  setting — 
their  country  homes — where  they  show  themselves  the 
best  of  hosts  and  reveal  their  real  opinions.  There  are, 
for  example,  in  the  house  where  I  happen  to  be  to-day, 
the  principals  of  three  of  the  Scotch  universities,  and  a 
Member  of  Parliament,  and  an  influential  editor. 

They  have,  of  course — I  mean  all  the  educated  folk  I 
meet — the  most  intelligent  interest  in  American  affairs, 
and  they  have  an  unbounded  admiration  for  the  American 
people — their  energy,  their  resourcefulness,  their  wealth, 

1Mr.  Root's  masterly  speech  on  Panama  tolls  was  made  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  January  21,  1913. 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  249 

their  economic  power  and  social  independence.  I  think 
that  no  people  ever  really  admired  and,  in  a  sense,  envied 
another  people  more.  They  know  we  hold  the  keys  of 
the  future. 

But  they  make  a  sharp  distinction  between  our  people 
and  our  Government.  They  are  sincere,  God-fearing 
people  who  speak  their  convictions.  They  cite  Tam- 
many, the  Thaw  case,  Sulzer,  the  Congressional  lobby, 
and  sincerely  regret  that  a  democracy  does  not  seem  to  be 
able  to  justify  itself.  I  am  constantly  amazed  and  some- 
times dumbfounded  at  the  profound  effect  that  the  yellow 
press  (including  the  American  correspondents  of  the 
English  papers)  has  had  upon  the  British  mind.  Here  is 
a  most  serious  journalistic  problem,  upon  which  I  have 
already  begun  to  work  seriously  with  some  of  the  editors 
of  the  better  London  papers.  But  it  is  more  than  a 
journalistic  problem.  It  becomes  political.  To  eradi- 
cate this  impression  will  take  years  of  well-planned  work. 
I  am  going  to  make  this  the  subject  of  one  of  the  dozen 
addresses  that  I  must  deliver  during  the  next  six  months 

"The  United  States  as  an  Example  of  Honest  and 
Honourable  Government." 

And  everywhere — in  circles  the  most  friendly  to  us, 
and  the  best  informed — I  receive  commiseration  because 
of  the  dishonourable  attitude  of  our  Government  about 
the  Panama  Canal  tolls.  This,  I  confess,  is  hard  to 
meet.  We  made  a  bargain — a  solemn  compact — and  we 
have  broken  it.  Whether  it  were  a  good  bargain  or  a 
bad  one,  a  silly  one  or  a  wise  one;  that's  far  from  the 
point.  Isn't  it?  I  confess  that  this  bothers  me.  .  .  . 

And  this  Canal  tolls  matter  stands  in  the  way  of  every- 
thing. It  is  in  their  minds  all  the  time — the  minds  of 
all  parties  and  all  sections  of  opinion.  They  have  no 
respect  for  Mr.  Taft,  for  they  remember  that  he  might 


250      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER  H.   PAGE 

have  vetoed  the  bill;  and  they  ask,  whenever  they  dare, 
what  you  will  do  about  it.  They  hold  our  Government 
in  shame  so  long  as  this  thing  stands. 

As  for  the  folly  of  having  made  such  a  treaty — that's 
now  passed.  As  for  our  unwillingness  to  arbitrate  it — 
that's  taken  as  a  confession  of  guilt.  .  .  . 

We  can  command  these  people,  this  Government,  this 
tight  island,  and  its  world-wide  empire;  they  honour  us, 
they  envy  us,  they  see  the  time  near  at  hand  when  we 
shall  command  the  capital  and  the  commerce  of  the 
world  if  we  unfetter  our  mighty  people;  they  wish  to 
keep  Tery  close  to  us.  But  they  are  suspicious  of  our 
Government  because,  they  contend,  it  has  violated  its 
faith.  Is  it  so  or  is  it  not? 

Life  meantime  is  brimful  of  interest ;  and,  despite  this 
reflex  result  of  the  English  long-blunder  with  Ireland 
(how  our  sins  come  home  to  roost),  the  Great  Republic 
casts  its  beams  across  the  whole  world  and  I  was  never 
so  proud  to  be  an  American  democrat,  as  I  see  it  light 
this  hemisphere  in  a  thousand  ways. 

All  health  and  mastery  to  you! 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 


The  story  of  Sir  William  Tyrrell's1  visit  to  the  White 
House  in  November,  1913,  has  already  been  told.  On 
this  occasion,  it  will  be  recalled,  not  only  was  an  agree- 
ment reached  on  Mexico,  but  President  Wilson  also 
repeated  the  assurances  already  given  by  Colonel  House 
on  the  repeal  of  the  tolls  legislation.  Now  that  Great 
Britain  had  accepted  the  President's  leadership  in  Mex- 
ico, the  time  was  approaching  when  President  Wilson 
might  be  expected  to  take  his  promised  stand  on  Panama 

1Ante:  page  202. 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  251 

tolls.  Yet  it  must  be  repeated  that  there  had  been  no 
definite  diplomatic  bargain.  But  Page  was  exerting  all 
his  efforts  to  establish  the  best  relations  between  the  two 
countries  on  the  basis  of  fair  dealing  and  mutual  respect. 
Great  Britain  had  shown  her  good  faith  in  the  Mexican 
matter;  now  the  turn  of  the  United  States  had  come. 


To  the  President 

London,  6  Grosvenor  Square. 

January  6,  1914. 
DEAR  MR.  PRESIDENT: 

We've  travelled  a  long  way  since  this  Mexican  trouble 
began — a  long  way  with  His  Majesty's  Government. 
When  your  policy  was  first  flung  at  'em,  they  showed 
at  best  a  friendly  incredulity:  what!  set  up  a  moral 
standard  for  government  in  Mexico?  Everybody's  mind 
was  fixed  merely  on  the  restoring  of  order — the  safety 
of  investments.  They  thought  of  course  our  army  would 
go  down  in  a  few  weeks.  I  recall  that  Sir  Edward  Grey 
asked  me  one  day  if  you  would  not  consult  the  European 
governments  about  the  successor  to  Huerta,  speaking  of 
it  as  a  problem  that  would  come  up  next  week.  And 
there  was  also  much  unofficial  talk  about  joint  inter- 
vention. 

Well,  they've  followed  a  long  way.  They  apologized 
for  Garden  (that's  what  the  Prime  Minister's  speech  was) ; 
they  ordered  him  to  be  more  prudent.  Then  the  real 
meaning  of  concessions  began  to  get  into  their  heads. 
They  took  up  the  dangers  that  lurked  in  the  Govern- 
ment's contract  with  Cowdray  for  oil;  and  they  pulled 
Cowdray  out  of  Colombia  and  Nicaragua — granting  the 
application  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  to  concessions  that 
might  imperil  a  country's  autonomy.  Then  Sir  Edward 


252       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

asked  me  if  you  would  not  consult  him  about  such  con- 
cessions— a  long  way  had  been  travelled  since  his  other 
question  I  Lord  Haldane  made  the  Thanksgiving  speech 
that  I  suggested  to  him.  And  now  they  have  transferred 
Garden.  They've  done  all  we  asked  and  more;  and, 
more  wonderful  yet,  they've  come  to  understand  what 
we  are  driving  at. 

As  this  poor  world  goes,  all  this  seems  to  me  rather 
handsomely  done.  At  any  rate,  it's  square  and  it's 
friendly. 

Now  in  diplomacy,  as  in  other  contests,  there  must  be 
give  and  take;  it's  our  turn. 

If  you  see  your  way  clear,  it  would  help  the  Liberal 
Government  (which  needs  help)  and  would  be  much 
appreciated  if,  before  February  10th,  when  Parliament 
meets,  you  could  say  a  public  word  friendly  to  our  keeping 
the  Hay-Pauncefote  Treaty — on  the  tolls.  You  only, 
of  course,  can  judge  whether  you  would  be  justified  in 
doing  so.  I  presume  only  to  assure  you  of  the  most  ex- 
cellent effect  it  would  have  here.  If  you  will  pardon  me 
for  taking  a  personal  view  of  it,  too,  I  will  say  that  such 
an  expression  would  cap  the  climax  of  the  enormously 
heightened  esteem  and  great  respect  in  which  recent 
events  and  achievements  have  caused  you  to  be  held 
here.  It  would  put  the  English  of  all  parties  in  the  hap- 
piest possible  mood  toward  you  for  whatever  subsequent 
dealings  may  await  us.  It  was  as  friendly  a  man  as 
Kipling  who  said  to  me  the  night  I  spent  with  him:  "You 
know  your  great  Government,  which  does  many  great 
things  greatly,  does  not  lie  awake  o'  nights  to  keep  its 
promises." 

It's  our  turn  next,  whenever  you  see  your  way  clear. 

Most  heartily  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  253 

From  Edward  M.  House 

145  East  35th  Street, 

New  York  City. 

January  24,  1914. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

I  was  with  the  President  for  twenty-four  hours  and  we 
went  over  everything  thoroughly. 

He  decided  to  call  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations  to  the  White  House  on  Monday  and  tell  them 
of  his  intentions  regarding  Panama  tolls.  We  discussed 
whether  it  would  be  better  to  see  some  of  them  individu- 
ally, or  to  take  them  collectively.  It  was  agreed  that 
the  latter  course  was  better.  It  was  decided,  however, 
to  have  Senator  Jones  poll  the  Senate  in  order  to  find  just 
how  it  stood  before  getting  the  Committee  together. 

The  reason  for  this  quick  action  was  in  response  to 
your  letter  urging  that  something  be  done  before  the  10th 
of  February.  .  .  . 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

On  March  5th  the  President  made  good  his  promise 
by  going  before  Congress  and  asking  the  two  Houses  to 
repeal  that  clause  in  the  Panama  legislation  which  granted 
preferential  treatment  to  American  coastwise  shipping. 
The  President's  address  was  very  brief  and  did  not  discuss 
the  matter  in  the  slightest  detail.  Mr.  Wilson  made  the 
question  one  simply  of  national  honour.  The  exemption, 
he  said,  clearly  violated  the  Hay-Pauncefote  Treaty  and 
there  was  nothing  left  to  do  but  to  set  the  matter  right. 
The  part  of  the  President's  address  that  aroused  the  great- 
est interest  was  the  conclusion: 

"  I  ask  this  of  you  in  support  of  the  foreign  policy  of 


254      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

the  Administration.  I  shall  not  know  how  to  deal  with 
other  matters  of  even  greater  delicacy  and  nearer  conse- 
quence, if  you  do  not  grant  it  to  me  in  ungrudging  meas- 
ure." 

The  impression  that  this  speech  made  upon  the  states- 
man who  then  presided  over  the  British  Foreign  office 
is  evident  from  the  following  letter  that  he  wrote  to  the 
Ambassador  in  Washington. 

Sir  Edward  Grey  to  Sir  C.  Spring  Rice 

Foreign  Office, 

March  13,  1914. 
SIR: 

In  the  course  of  a  conversation  with  the  American 
Ambassador  to-day,  I  took  the  opportunity  of  saying 
how  much  I  had  been  struck  by  President  Wilson's 
Message  to  Congress  about  the  Panama  Canal  tolls. 
When  I  read  it,  it  struck  me  that,  whether  it  succeeded  or 
failed  in  accomplishing  the  President's  object,  it  was  some- 
thing to  the  good  of  public  life,  for  it  helped  to  lift  public 
life  to  a  higher  plane  and  to  strengthen  its  morale. 

I  am,  &c., 

E.  GREY. 

Two  days  after  his  appearance  before  Congress  the 
President  wrote  to  his  Ambassador: 

From  the  President 

The  White  House,  Washington, 

March  7,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  PAGE: 

I  have  your  letters  of  the  twenty-second  and  twenty- 
fourth  of  February  and  I  thank  you  for  them  most 
warmly.  Happily,  things  are  clearing  up  a  little  in  the 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  255 

matters  which  have  embarrassed  our  relations  with  Great 
Britain,  and  I  hope  that  the  temper  of  public  opinion  is 
in  fact  changing  there,  as  it  seems  to  us  from  this  distance 
to  be  changing. 

Your  letters  are  a  lamp  to  my  feet.  I  feel  as  I  read  that 
their  analysis  is  searching  and  true. 

Things  over  here  go  on  a  tolerably  even  keel.  The 
prospect  at  this  moment  for  the  repeal  of  the  tolls  ex- 
emption is  very  good  indeed.  I  am  beginning  to  feel  a 
considerable  degree  of  confidence  that  the  repeal  will  go 
through,  and  the  Press  of  the  country  is  certainly  standing 
by  me  in  great  shape. 

My  thoughts  turn  to  you  very  often  with  gratitude  and 
affectionate  regard.  If  there  is  ever  at  any  time  any- 
thing specific  you  want  to  learn,  pray  do  not  hesitate  to 
ask  it  of  me  directly,  if  you  think  best. 

Garden  was  here  the  other  day  and  I  spent  an  hour 
with  him,  but  I  got  not  even  a  glimpse  of  his  mind.  I 
showed  him  all  of  mine  that  he  cared  to  see. 

With  warmest  regards  from  us  all, 

Faithfully  yours, 

WOODROW  WILSON. 

The  debate  which  now  took  place  in  Congress  proved  to 
be  one  of  the  stormiest  in  the  history  of  that  body.  The 
proceeding  did  not  prove  to  be  the  easy  victory  that 
the  Administration  had  evidently  expected.  The  struggle 
was  protracted  for  three  months;  and  it  signalized  Mr. 
Wilson's  first  serious  conflict  with  the  Senate — that  same 
Senate  which  was  destined  to  play  such  a  vexatious  and 
destructive  role  in  his  career.  At  this  time,  however, 
Mr.  Wilson  had  reached  the  zenith  of  his  control  over 
the  law-making  bodies.  It  was  early  in  his  Presidential 
term,  and  in  these  early  days  Senators  are  likely  to  be 


256       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

careful  about  quarrelling  with  the  White  House — especially 
the  Senators  who  are  members  of  the  President's  political 
party.  In  this  struggle,  moreover,  Mr.  Wilson  had  the 
intelligence  and  the  character  of  the  Senate  largely  on 
his  side,  though,  strangely  enough,  his  strongest  sup- 
porters were  Republicans  and  his  bitterest  opponents 
were  Democrats.  Senator  Root,  Senator  Burton,  Senator 
Lodge,  Senator  Kenyon,  Senator  McCumber,  all  Re- 
publicans, day  after  day  and  week  after  week  upheld  the 
national  honour;  while  Senators  O'Gorman,  Chamber- 
lain, Vardaman,  and  Reed,  all  members  of  the  President's 
party,  just  as  persistently  led  the  fight  for  the  baser 
cause.  The  debate  inspired  an  outburst  of  Anglo- 
phobia which  was  most  distressing  to  the  best  friends  of 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain.  The  American 
press,  as  a  whole,  honoured  itself  by  championing  the 
President,  but  certain  newspapers  made  the  debate  an 
occasion  for  unrestrained  abuse  of  Great  Britain,  and  of 
any  one  who  believed  that  the  United  States  should  treat 
that  nation  honestly.  The  Hearst  organs,  in  cartoon 
and  editorial  page,  shrieked  against  the  ancient  enemy. 
All  the  well-known  episodes  and  characters  in  American 
history — Lexington,  Bunker  Hill,  John  Paul  Jones,  Wash- 
ington, and  Franklin — were  paraded  as  arguments  against 
the  repeal  of  an  illegal  discrimination.  Petitions  from 
the  Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians  and  other  Irish  societies 
were  showered  upon  Congress — in  almost  unending  pro- 
cession they  clogged  the  pages  of  the  Congressional 
Record;  public  meetings  were  held  in  New  York  and  else- 
where denouncing  an  administration  that  disgraced  the 
country  by  "truckling"  to  Great  Britain.  The  Presi- 
dent was  accused  of  seeking  an  Anglo- American  Alliance 
and  of  sacrificing  American  shipping  to  the  glory  of 
British  trade,  while  the  history  of  our  diplomatic  rela 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  257 

tions  was  surveyed  in  detail  for  the  purpose  of  proving 
that  Great  Britain  had  broken  every  treaty  she  had  ever 
made.  In  the  midst  of  this  deafening  hubbub  the  quiet 
voice  of  Senator  McCumber-v"  we  are  too  big  in  national 
I  power  to  be  too  little  in  national  integrity  ">— and  that  of 
Senator  Root,  demolishing  one  after  another  the  petti- 
fogging arguments  of  the  exemptionists,  demonstrated 
that,  after  all,  the  spirit  and  the  eloquence  that  had 
given  the  Senate  its  great  fame  were  still  influential 
forces  in  that  body. 

In  all  this  excitement,  Page  himself  came  in  for  his 
share  of  hard  knocks.  Irish  meetings  "resolved"  against 
the  Ambassador  as  a  statesman  who  "looks  on  English 
claims  as  superior  to  American  rights,"  and  demanded 
that  President  Wilson  recall  him.  It  has  been  the  fate 
of  practically  every  American  ambassador  to  Great 
Britain  to  be  accused  of  Anglomania.  Lowell,  John 
Hay,  and  Joseph  H.  Choate  fell  under  the  ban  of  those 
elements  in  American  life  who  seem  to  think  that  the 
main  duty  of  an  American  diplomat  in  Great  Britain  is 
to  insult  the  country  of  which  he  has  become  the  guest. 
In  1895  the  House  of  Representatives  solemnly  passed  a 
resolution  censuring  Ambassador  Thomas  F.  Bayard  for 
a  few  sentiments  friendly  to  Great  Britain  which  he  had 
uttered  at  a  public  banquet.  That  Page  was  no  undis- 
criminating  idolater  of  Great  Britain  these  letters  have 
abundantly  revealed.  That  he  had  the  profoundest  re- 
spect for  the  British  character  and  British  institutions 
has  been  made  just  as  clear.  With  Page  this  was  no 
sudden  enthusiasm;  the  conviction  that  British  concep- 
tions of  liberty  and  government  and  British  ideals  of 
life  represented  the  fine  flower  of  human  progress  was 
one  that  he  felt  deeply.  The  fact  that  these  funda- 
mentals had  had  the  opportunity  of  even  freer  develop- 


258       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

ment  in  America  he  regarded  as  most  fortunate  both  for 
the  United  States  and  for  the  world.  He  had  never  con- 
cealed his  belief  that  the  destinies  of  mankind  depended 
more  upon  the  friendly  cooperation  of  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain  than  upon  any  other  single  influence. 
He  had  preached  this  in  public  addresses,  and  in  his 
writings  for  twenty-five  years  preceding  his  mission  to 
Great  Britain.  But  the  mere  fact  that  he  should  hold 
such  convictions  and  presume  to  express  them  as  American 
Ambassador  apparently  outraged  those  same  elements 
in  this  country  who  railed  against  Great  Britain  in  this 
Panama  Tolls  debate. 

On  August  16,  1913,  the  City  of  Southampton,  Eng- 
land, dedicated  a  monument  in  honour  of  the  Mayflower 
Pilgrims — Southampton  having  been  their  original  point 
of  departure  for  Massachusetts.  Quite  appropriately 
the  city  invited  the  American  Ambassador  to  deliver  an 
address  on  this  occasion;  and  quite  appropriately  the 
Ambassador  acknowledged  the  debt  that  Americans  of 
to-day  owed  to  the  England  that  had  sent  these  ad- 
venturers to  lay  the  foundations  of  new  communities  on 
foreign  soil.  Yet  certain  historic  truths  embodied  in 
this  very  beautiful  and  eloquent  address  aroused  con- 
siderable anger  in  certain  parts  of  the  United  States. 
" Blood,"  said  the  Ambassador,  "carries  with  it  that 
particular  trick  of  thought  which  makes  us  all  English 
in  the  last  resort.  .  .  .  And  Puritan  and  Pilgrim 
and  Cavalier,  different  yet,  are  yet  one  in  that  they  are 
English  still.  And  thus,  despite  the  fusion  of  races  and 
of  the  great  contributions  of  other  nations  to  her  100  mil- 
lions of  people  and  to  her  incalculable  wealth,  the  United 
States  is  yet  English-led  and  English-ruled."  This  was 
merely  a  way  of  phrasing  a  great  historic  truth — that 
overwhelmingly  the  largest  element  in  the  American 


HONOUR  AND  DISHONOUR  IN  PANAMA  259 

population  is  British  in  origin1 ;  that  such  vital  things  as 
its  speech  and  its  literature  are  English;  and  that  our 
political  institutions,  our  liberty,  our  law,  our  con- 
ceptions of  morality  and  of  life  are  similarly  derived  from 
the  British  Isles.  Page  applied  the  word  "English"  to 
Americans  in  the  same  sense  in  which  that  word  is  used 
by  John  Richard  Green,  when  he  traces  the  history  of 
the  English  race  from  a  German  forest  to  the  Mississippi 
Valley  and  the  wilds  of  Australia.  But  the  anti-British 
elements  on  this  side  of  the  water,  taking  "English-led 
and  English-ruled"  out  of  its  context,  misinterpreted  the 
phrase  as  meaning  that  the  American  Ambassador  had 
approvingly  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  United 
States  was  at  present  under  the  political  control  of  Great 
Britain  I  Senator  Chamberlain  of  Oregon  presented  a 
petition  from  the  Staatsverband  Deutschsprechender  Vereine 
von  Oregon,  demanding  the  Ambassador's  removal,  while 
the  Irish- American  press  and  politicians  became  extremely 
vocal. 

Animated  as  was  this  outburst,  it  was  mild  compared 
with  the  excitement  caused  by  a  speech  that  Page 
made  while  the  Panama  debate  was  raging  in  Congress. 
At  a  dinner  of  the  Associated  Chambers  of  Commerce,  in 
early  March,  the  Ambassador  made  a  few  impromptu 
remarks.  The  occasion  was  one  of  good  fellowship  and 
good  'humour,  and  Page,  under  the  inspiration  of  the 
occasion,  indulged  in  a  few  half-serious,  half-jocular 
references  to  the  Panama  Canal  and  British-American 
good-feeling,  which,  when  inaccurately  reported,  caused 
a  great  disturbance  in  the  England-baiting  press.  "I 

irrhis  is  the  fact  that  is  too  frequently  lost  sight  of  in  current  discussions  of  the 
melting  pot.  In  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  August,  1920,  Mr.  William  S.  Rossiter, 
for  many  years  chief  clerk  of  the  United  States  Census  and  a  statistician  of  high 
standing,  shows  that,  of  the  95,000,000  white  people  of  the  United  States,  55,000- 
000  trace  their  origin  to  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales. 


260       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

would  not  say  that  we  constructed  the  Panama  Canal 
even  for  you,"  he  said,  "for  I  am  speaking  with  great 
frankness  and  not  with  diplomatic  indirection.  We 
built  it  for  reasons  of  our  own.  But  I  will  say  that  it 
adds  to  the  pleasure  of  that  great  work  that  you  will 
profit  by  it.  You  will  profit  most  by  it,  for  you  have 
the  greatest  carrying  trade."  A  few  paragraphs  on  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  which  practically  repeated  President 
Wilson's  Mobile  speech  on  that  subject,  but  in  which 
Mr.  Page  used  the  expression,  "we  prefer  that  European 
Powers  shall  acquire  no  more  territory  on  this  continent," 
alarmed  those  precisians  in  language,  who  pretended  to 
believe  that  the  Ambassador  had  used  the  word  "prefer" 
in  its  literal  sense,  and  interpreted  the  sentence  to  mean 
that,  while  the  United  States  would  "prefer"  that 
Europe  should  not  overrun  North  and  South  America,  it 
would  really  raise  no  serious  objection  if  Europe  did  so. 

Senator  Chamberlain  of  Oregon,  who  by  this  time  had 
apparently  become  the  Senatorial  leader  of  the  anti-Page 
propaganda,  introduced  a  resolution  demanding  that  the 
Ambassador  furnish  the  Senate  a  complete  copy  of  this 
highly  pro-British  outgiving.  The  copy  was  furnished 
forthwith — and  with  that  the  tempest  subsided. 

To  the  President 

American  Embassy,  London, 

March  18,  1914. 
DEAR  MR.  PRESIDENT: 

About  this  infernal  racket  in  the  Senate  over  my  poor 
speech,  I  have  telegraphed  you  all  there  is  to  say.  Of 
course,  it  was  a  harmless  courtesy — no  bowing  low  to  the 
British  or  any  such  thing — as  it  was  spoken  and  heard. 
Of  course,  too,  nothing  would  have  been  said  about  it 
but  for  the  controversy  over  the  Canal  tolls.  That  was 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR  IN   PANAMA  261 

my  mistake — in  being  betrayed  by  the  friendly  dinner 
and  the  high  compliments  paid  to  us  into  mentioning  a 
subject  under  controversy. 

I  am  greatly  distressed  lest  possibly  it  may  embarrass 
you.  I  do  hope  not. 

I  think  I  have  now  learned  that  lesson  pretty  thor- 
oughly. These  Anglophobiacs— Irish  and  Panama— hound 
me  wherever  I  go.  I  think  I  told  you  of  one  of  their 
correspondents,  who  one  night  got  up  and  yawned  at 
a  public  dinner  as  soon  as  I  had  spoken  and  said  to  his 
neighbours:  "Well,  I'll  go,  the  Ambassador  didn't  say 
anything  that  I  can  get  him  into  trouble  about." 

I  shall,  hereafter,  write  out  my  speeches  and  have  them 
gone  over  carefully  by  my  little  Cabinet  of  Secretaries. 
Yet  something  (perhaps  not  much)  will  be  lost.  For 
these  people  are  infinitely  kind  and  friendly  and  cour- 
teous. 

They  cannot  be  driven  by  anybody  to  do  anything, 
but  they  can  be  led  by  us  to  do  anything — by  the  use  of 
spontaneous  courtesy.  It  is  by  spontaneous  courtesy 
that  I  have  achieved  whatever  I  have  achieved,  and  it  is 
for  this  that  those  like  me  who  do  like  me.  Of  course, 
what  some  of  the  American  newspapers  have  said  is  true 
— that  I  am  too  free  and  too  untrained  to  be  a  great 
Ambassador.  But  the  conventional  type  of  Ambassador 
would  not  be  worth  his  salt  to  represent  the  United 
States  here  now,  when  they  are  eager  to  work  with  us  for 
the  peace  of  the  world,  if  they  are  convinced  of  our  honour 
and  right-mindedness  and  the  genuineness  of  our  friend- 
ship. 

I  talked  this  over  with  Sir  Edward  Grey  the  other  day, 
and  after  telling  me  that  I  need  fear  no  trouble  at  this 
end  of  the  line,  he  told  me  how  severely  he  is  now  criti- 
cized by  a  "certain  element"  for  "bowing  too  low  to  the 


262       THE   LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Americans."  We  then  each  bowed  low  to  the  other. 
The  yellow  press  and  Chamberlain  would  give  a  year's 
growth  for  a  photograph  of  us  in  that  posture! 

I  am  infinitely  obliged  to  you  for  your  kind  understand- 
ing and  your  toleration  of  my  errors. 

Yours  always  heartily, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 
To  the  President. 

P.  S.  The  serious  part  of  the  speech — made  to  convince 
the  financial  people,  who  are  restive  about  Mexico,  that 
we  do  not  mean  to  forbid  legitimate  investments  in 
Central  America — has  had  a  good  effect  here.  I  have 
received  the  thanks  of  many  important  men. 

W.  H.  P. 

From  the  President 

The  White  House,  Washington, 

March  25,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  PAGE: 

Thank  you  for  your  little  note  of  March  thirteenth.1 
You  may  be  sure  that  none  of  us  who  knew  you  or  read 
the  speech  felt  anything  but  admiration  for  it.  It  is 
very  astonishing  to  me  how  some  Democrats  in  the  Senate 
themselves  bring  these  artificial  difficulties  on  the  Ad- 
ministration, and  it  distresses  me  not  a  little.  Mr. 
Bryan  read  your  speech  yesterday  to  the  Cabinet,  who 
greatly  enjoyed  it.  It  was  at  once  sent  to  the  Senate 
and  I  hope  will  there  be  given  out  for  publication  in  full. 

I  want  you  to  feel  constantly  how  I  value  the  intelligent 
and  effective  work  you  are  doing  in  London.  I  do  not 
know  what  I  should  do  without  you. 

The  fight  is  on  now  about  the  tolls,  but  I  feel  per- 
fectly confident  of  winning  in  the  matter,  though  there 

xThe  Ambassador's  letter  is  dated  March  18th. 


HONOUR  AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  263 

is  not  a  little  opposition  in  Congress — more  in  the  House, 
it  strangely  turns  out,  where  a  majority  of  the  Demo- 
crats originally  voted  against  the  exemption,  than  in  the 
Senate,  where  a  majority  of  the  Democrats  voted  for  it. 
The  vicissitudes  of  politics  are  certainly  incalculable. 
With  the  warmest  regard,  in  necessary  haste, 

Cordially  and  faithfully  yours, 

WOODROW  WILSON. 
HON.  WALTER  H.  PAGE, 
American  Embassy, 
London,  England. 

To  the  President 

American  Embassy,  London, 

March  2,  1914. 
DEAR  MR.  PRESIDENT: 

I  have  read  in  the  newspapers  here  that,  after  you  had 
read  my  poor,  unfortunate  speech,  you  remarked  to 
callers  that  you  regarded  it  as  proper.  I  cannot  with- 
hold this  word  of  affectionate  thanks. 

I  do  not  agree  with  you,  heartily  as  I  thank  you.  The 
speech  itself,  in  the  surroundings  and  the  atmosphere,  was 
harmless  and  was  perfectly  understood.  But  I  ought 
not  to  have  been  betrayed  into  forgetting  that  the  sub- 
ject was  about  to  come  up  for  fierce  discussion  in  Con- 
gress. .  .  . 

Of  course,  I  know  that  the  whole  infernal  thing  is 
cooked  up  to  beat  you,  if  possible.  But  that  is  the 
greater  reason  why  you  must  win.  I  am  willing  to  be 
sacrificed,  if  that  will  help — for  forgetting  the  impend- 
ing row  or  for  any  reason  you  will. 

I  suppose  we've  got  to  go  through  such  a  struggle  to 
pull  our  Government  and  our  people  up  to  an  under- 
standing of  our  own  place  in  the  world — a  place  so  high 


264       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

and  big  and  so  powerful  that  all  the  future  belongs  to  us. 
From  an  economic  point  of  view,  we  are  the  world;  and 
from  a  political  point  of  view  also.  How  any  man  who 
sees  this  can  have  any  feeling  but  pity  for  the  Old  World, 
passes  understanding.  Our  role  is  to  treat  it  most 
courteously  and  to  make  it  respect  our  character — noth- 
ing more.  Time  will  do  the  rest. 

I  congratulate  you  most  heartily  on  the  character  of 
most  of  your  opposition — the  wild  Irish  (they  must  be 
sat  upon  some  time,  why  not  now?),  the  Clark1  crowd 
(characteristically  making  a  stand  on  a  position  of  dis- 
honour), the  Hearst  press,  and  demagogues  generally. 
I  have  confidence  in  the  people. 

This  stand  is  necessary  to  set  us  right  before  the  world, 
to  enable  us  to  build  up  an  influential  foreign  policy,  to 
make  us  respected  and  feared,  and  to  make  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  the  party  of  honour,  and  to  give  it  the  best 
reason  to  live  and  to  win. 

May  I  make  a  suggestion? 

The  curiously  tenacious  hold  that  Anglophobia  has 
on  a  certain  class  of  our  people — might  it  not  be  worth 
your  while  to  make,  at  some  convenient  time  and  in  some 
natural  way,  a  direct  attack  on  it — in  a  letter  to  someone, 
which  could  be  published,  or  in  some  address,  or  possibly 
in  a  statement  to  a  Senate  committee,  which  could  be 
given  to  the  press?  Say  how  big  and  strong  and  sure- 
of-the-future  we  are;  so  big  that  we  envy  nobody,  and 
that  those  who  have  Anglophobia  or  any  Europe-phobia 
are  the  only  persons  who  "truckle"  to  any  foreign  folk 
or  power;  that  in  this  tolls-fight  all  the  Continental  gov- 
ernments are  a  unit;  that  we  respect  them  all,  fear  none, 
have  no  favours,  except  proper  favours  among  friendly 

1Mr.  Champ  Clark,  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  was  one  of  the 
most  blatant  opponents  of  Panama  repeal. 


HONOUR   AND   DISHONOUR   IN   PANAMA  265 

nations,  to  ask  of  anybody;  and  that  the  idea  of  a  "trade" 
with  England  for  holding  off  in  Mexico  is  (if  you  will  ex- 
cuse my  French)  a  common  gutter  lie. 

This  may  or  may  not  be  wise;  but  you  will  forgive  me 
for  venturing  to  suggest  it.  It  is  we  who  are  the  proud 
and  erect  and  patriotic  Americans,  fearing  nobody;  but 
the  other  fellows  are  fooling  some  of  the  people  in  making 
them  think  that  they  are. 

Yours  most  gratefully, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 
To  the  President. 

From  the  President 

The  White  House,  Washington, 

April  2,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  PAGE  : 

Please  do  not  distress  yourself  about  that  speech.  I 
think  with  you  that  it  was  a  mistake  to  touch  upon  that 
matter  while  it  was  right  hot,  because  any  touch  would 
be  sure  to  burn  the  finger;  but  as  for  the  speech  itself,  I 
would  be  willing  to  subscribe  to  every  bit  of  it  myself, 
and  there  can  be  no  rational  objection  to  it.  We  shall 
try  to  cool  the  excited  persons  on  this  side  of  the  water  and 
I  think  nothing  further  will  come  of  it.  In  the  mean- 
time, pray  realize  how  thoroughly  and  entirely  you  are 
enjoying  my  confidence  and  admiration. 

Your  letter  about  Cowdray  and  Murray  was  very  il- 
luminating and  will  be  very  serviceable  to  me.  I  have 
come  to  see  that  the  real  knowledge  of  the  relations  between 
countries  in  matters  of  public  policy  is  to  be  gained  at 
country  houses  and  dinner  tables,  and  not  in  diplomatic 
correspondence;  in  brief,  that  when  we  know  the  men 
and  the  currents  of  opinion,  we  know  more  than  foreign 
ministers  can  tell  us;  and  your  letters  give  me,  in  a  thor- 


266       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

oughly  dignified  way,  just  the  sidelights  that  are  neces- 
sary to  illuminate  the  picture.  I  am  heartily  obliged  to 
you. 

All  unite  with  me  in  the  warmest  regards  as  always. 

In  haste, 

Faithfully  yours, 

WOODROW  WILSON. 
HON.  WALTER  H.  PAGE, 
American  Embassy, 
London,  England. 

A  note  of  a  conversation  with  Sir  Edward  Grey  touches 
the  same  point:  "April  1,  1914.  Sir  Edward  Grey  re- 
called to  me  to-day  that  he  had  waited  for  the  President 
to  take  up  the  Canal  tolls  controversy  at  his  convenience. 
*  When  he  took  it  up  at  his  own  time  to  suit  his  own  plans, 
he  took  it  up  in  the  most  admirable  way  possible. '  This 
whole  story  is  too  good  to  be  lost.  If  the  repeal  of  the 
tolls  clause  passes  the  Senate,  I  propose  to  make  a  speech 
in  the  House  of  Commons  on  'The  Proper  Way  for  Great 
Governments  to  Deal  with  One  Another,'  and  use  this 
experience. 

"Sir  Edward  also  spoke  of  being  somewhat  *  depressed' 
by  the  fierce  opposition  to  the  President  on  the  tolls 
question — the  extent  of  Anglophobia  in  the  United 
States. 

"Here  is  a  place  for  a  campaign  of  education — Chau- 
tauqua  and  whatnot. 

"The  amount  of  Anglophobia  is  great.  But  I  doubt 
if  it  be  as  great  as  it  seems ;  for  it  is  organized  and  is  very 
vociferous.  If  you  collected  together  or  thoroughly  or- 
ganized all  the  people  in  the  United  States  who  have 
birthmarks  on  their  faces,  you'd  be  'depressed'  by  the 
number  of  them." 


HONOUR  AND   DISHONOUR  IN  PANAMA  267 

Nothing  could  have  more  eloquently  proved  the  truth 
of  this  last  remark  than  the  history  of  this  Panama  bill 
itself.  After  all  the  politicians  in  the  House  and  Senate 
had  filled  pages  of  the  Congressional  Record  with  denun- 
ciations of  Great  Britain — most  of  it  intended  for  the 
entertainment  of  Irish-Americans  and  German-Ameri- 
cans in  the  constituencies — the  two  Houses  proceeded 
to  the  really  serious  business  of  voting.  The  House 
quickly  passed  the  bill  by  216  to  71,  and  the  Senate  by 
50  to  35.  Apparently  the  amount  of  Anglophobia  was 
not  portentous,  when  it  came  to  putting  this  emotion  to 
the  test  of  counting  heads.  The  bill  went  at  once  to 
the  President,  was  signed — and  the  dishonour  was 
atoned  for. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Page  were  attending  a  ball  in  Buckingham 
Palace  when  the  great  news  reached  London.  The 
gathering  represented  all  that  was  most  distinguished  in 
the  official  and  diplomatic  life  of  the  British  capital. 
The  word  was  rapidly  passed  from  guest  to  guest,  and 
the  American  Ambassador  and  his  wife  soon  found  them- 
selves the  centre  of  a  company  which  could  hardly  re- 
strain itself  in  expressing  its  admiration  for  the  United 
States.  (Never  in  the  history  of  the  country  had  Ameri- 
can prestige  stood  so  high  as  on  that  night.)  The  King  and 
the  Prime  Minister  were  especially  affected  by  this  dis- 
play of  fair-dealing  in  Washington.  The  slight  com- 
mercial advantage  which  Great  Britain  had  obtained 
was  not  the  thought  that  was  uppermost  in  every- 
body's mind.  The  thing  that  really  moved  these  as- 
sembled statesmen  and  diplomats  was  the  fact  that  some- 
thing new  had  appeared  in  the  history  of  legislative 
chambers.  A  great  nation  had  committed  an  outrageous 
wrong — that  was  something  that  had  happened  many 
times  before  in  all  countries.  But  the  unprecedented 


268       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

thing  was  that  this  same  nation  had  exposed  its  fault 
boldly  to  the  world — had  lifted  up  its  hands  and  cried, 
"We  have  sinned!"  and  then  had  publicly  undone  its 
error.  Proud  as  Page  had  always  been  of  his  country, 
that  moment  was  perhaps  the  most  triumphant  in  his 
life.  The  action  of  Congress  emphasized  all  that  he  had 
been  saying  of  the  ideals  of  the  United  States,  and  gave 
point  to  his  arguments  that  justice  and  honour  and  right, 
and  not  temporary  selfish  interest,  should  control  the 
foreign  policy  of  any  nation  which  really  claimed  to  be 
enlightened.  The  general  feeling  of  Great  Britain  was 
perhaps  best  expressed  by  the  remark  made  to  Mrs. 
Page,  on  this  occasion,  by  Lady  D—  — : 

"The  United  States  has  set  a  high  standard  for  all 
nations  to  live  up  to.  I  don't  believe  that  there  is  any 
other  nation  that  would  have  done  it." 

One  significant  feature  of  this  great  episode  was  the  act 
of  Congress  in  accepting  the  President's  statement  that 
the  repeal  of  the  Panama  discrimination  was  a  neces- 
sary preliminary  to  the  success  of  American  foreign 
policy.  Mr.  Wilson's  declaration,  that,  unless  this  legis- 
lation should  be  repealed,  he  would  not  "know  how  to 
deal  with  other  matters  of  even  greater  delicacy  and 
nearer  consequence"  had  puzzled  Congress  and  the 
country.  The  debates  show  the  keenest  curiosity  as  to 
what  the  President  had  in  mind.  The  newspapers  turned 
the  matter  over  and  over,  without  obtaining  any  clew 
to  the  mystery.  Some  thought  that  the  President  had 
planned  to  intervene  in  Mexico,  and  that  the  tolls  legis- 
lation was  the  consideration  demanded  by  Great  Britain 
for  a  free  hand  in  this  matter.  But  this  correspondence 
has  already  demolished  that  theory.  Others  thought 
that  Japan  was  in  some  way  involved — but  that  ex- 
planation also  failed  to  satisfy. 


HONOUR  AND  DISHONOUR  IN  PANAMA       269 

Congress  accepted  the  President's  statement  trustfully 
and  blindly,  and  passed  the  asked-for  legislation.  Up 
to  the  present  moment  this  passage  in  the  Presidential 
message  has  been  unexplained.  Page's  papers,  however, 
disclose  what  seems  to  be  a  satisfactory  solution  to  the 
mystery.  They  show  that  the  President  and  Colonel 
House  and  Page  were  at  this  time  engaged  in  a  negotia- 
tion of  the  utmost  importance.  At  the  very  time  that 
the  tolls  bill  was  under  discussion  Colonel  House  was 
making  arrangements  for  a  visit  to  Great  Britain,  France, 
and  Germany,  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  bring  these 
nations  to  some  kind  of  an  understanding  that  would 
prevent  a  European  war.  This  evidently  was  the  great 
business  that  could  not  be  disclosed  at  the  time  and  for 
which  the  repeal  of  the  tolls  legislation  was  the  necessary 
preliminary. 


CHAPTER  IX 

AMERICA    TRIES    TO    PREVENT    THE 
EUR  OPEAN    WAR 

PAGE'S  mind,  from  the  day  of  his  arrival  in  Eng- 
land, had  been  filled  with  that  portent  which  was  the 
most  outstanding  fact  in  European  life.  Could  nothing  be 
done  to  prevent  the  dangers  threatened  by  European 
militarism?  Was  there  no  way  of  forestalling  the  war 
which  seemed  every  day  to  be  approaching  nearer?  The 
dates  of  the  following  letters,  August,  1913,  show  that 
this  was  one  of  the  first  ideas  which  Page  presented  to  the 
new  Administration. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

Aug.  28,  1913. 
MY  DEAR  HOUSE: 

.  .  .  Everything  is  lovely  and  the  goose  hangs  high. 
We're  having  a  fine  time.  Only,  only,  only — I  do  wish 
to  do  something  constructive  and  lasting.  Here  are 
great  navies  and  armies  and  great  withdrawals  of  men 
from  industry — an  enormous  waste.  Here  are  kings  and 
courts  and  gold  lace  and  ceremonies  which,  without  pro- 
ducing anything,  require  great  cost  to  keep  them  going. 
Here  are  all  the  privileges  and  taxes  that  this  state  of 
things  implies — every  one  a  hindrance  to  human  progress. 
We  are  free  from  most  of  these.  We  have  more  people 
and  more  capable  people  and  many  times  more  territory 
than  both  England  and  Germany;  and  we  have  more 
potential  wealth  than  all  Europe.  They  know  that. 

270 


AMERICA  TRIES   TO   PREVENT   WAR  271 

They'd  like  to  find  a  way  to  escape.  The  Hague  pro- 
grammes, for  the  most  part,  just  lead  them  around  a 
circle  in  the  dark  back  to  the  place  where  they  started. 
Somebody  needs  to  do  something.  If  we  could  mid  some 
friendly  use  for  these  navies  and  armies  and  kings  and 
things — in  the  service  of  humanity — they'd  follow  us.  We 
ought  to  find  a  way  to  use  them  in  cleaning  up  the  tropics 
under  our  leadership  and  under  our  code  of  ethics — that 
everything  must  be  done  for  the  good  of  the  tropical 
peoples  and  that  nobody  may  annex  a  foot  of  land.  They 
want  a  job.  Then  they'd  quit  sitting  on  their  haunches, 
growling  at  one  another. 

I  wonder  if  we  couldn't  serve  notice  that  the  land- 
stealing  game  is  forever  ended  and  that  the  cleaning  up 
of  backward  lands  is  now  in  order — for  the  people  that 
live  there;  and  then  invite  Europe's  help  to  make  the 
tropics  as  healthful  as  the  Panama  Zone? 

There's  no  future  in  Europe's  vision — no  long  look 
ahead.  They  give  all  their  thought  to  the  immediate 
danger.  Consider  this  Balkan  War ;  all  European  energy 
was  spent  merely  to  keep  the  Great  Powers  at  peace. 
The  two  wars  in  the  Balkans  have  simply  impoverished 
the  people — left  the  world  that  much  worse  than  it  was 
before.  Nobody  has  considered  the  well-being  or  the 
future  of  those  peoples  nor  of  their  land.  The  Great 
Powers  are  mere  threats  to  one  another,  content  to 
check,  one  the  other!  There  can  come  no  help  to  the 
progress  of  the  world  from  this  sort  of  action — no  step 
forward. 

Work  on  a  world-plan.  Nothing  but  blue  chips,  you 
know.  Is  it  not  possible  that  Mexico  may  give  an  enter- 
ing wedge  for  this  kind  of  thing? 

Heartily  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 


272       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

In  a  memorandum,  written  about  the  same  time,  Mr. 
Page  explains  his  idea  in  more  detail: 

Was  there  ever  greater  need  than  there  is  now  of  a 
first-class  mind  unselfishly  working  on  world  problems? 
The  ablest  ruling  minds  are  engaged  on  domestic  tasks. 
There  is  no  world-girdling  intelligence  at  work  in  gov- 
ernment. On  the  continent  of  Europe,  the  Kaiser  is 
probably  the  foremost  man.  Yet  he  cannot  think  far 
beyond  the  provincial  views  of  the  Germans.  In  England, 
Sir  Edward  Grey  is  the  largest-visioned  statesman.  All 
the  Europeans  are  spending  their  thought  and  money 
in  watching  and  checkmating  one  another  and  in  main- 
taining then*  armed  and  balanced  status  quo. 

A  way  must  be  found  out  of  this  stagnant  watching. 
Else  a  way  will  have  to  be  fought  out  of  it;  and  a  great 
European  war  would  set  the  Old  World,  perhaps  the  whole 
world,  back  a  long  way ;  and  thereafter,  the  present  armed 
watching  would  recur ;  we  should  have  gained  nothing.  It 
seems  impossible  to  talk  the  Great  Powers  out  of  their 
fear  of  one  another  or  to  "Hague "  them  out  of  it.  They'll 
never  be  persuaded  to  disarm.  The  only  way  left  seems 
/  to  be  to  find  some  common  and  useful  work  for  these 
great  armies  to  do.  Then,  perhaps,  they'll  work  them- 
selves out  of  their  jealous  position.  Isn't  this  sound 
psychology? 

To  produce  a  new  situation,  the  vast  energy  that  now 
spends  itself  in  maintaining  armies  and  navies  must  find 
a  new  outlet.  Something  new  must  be  found  for  them  to 
do,  some  great  unselfish  task  that  they  can  do  together. 

Nobody  can  lead  in  such  a  new  era  but  the  United 
States. 

May  there  not  come  such  a  chance  in  Mexico — to  clean 
out  bandits,  yellow  fever,  malaria,  hookworm — all  to 


AMERICA   TRIES   TO   PREVENT   WAR  273 

make  the  country  healthful,  safe  for  life  and  investment, 
and  for  orderly  self-government  at  last?  What  we  did  in 
Cuba  might  thus  be  made  the  beginning  of  a  new  epoch 
in  history — conquest  for  the  sole  benefit  of  the  conquered, 
worked  out  by  a  sanitary  reformation.  The  new  sanita- 
tion will  reclaim  all  tropical  lands ;  but  the  work  must  be 
first  done  by  military  power — probably  from  the  outside. 

May  not  the  existing  military  power  of  Europe  con- 
ceivably be  diverted,  gradually,  to  this  use?  One  step 
at  a  time,  as  political  and  financial  occasions  arise?  As 
presently  in  Mexico? 

This  present  order  must  change.  It  holds  the  Old 
World  still.  It  keeps  all  parts  of  the  world  apart,  in 
spite  of  the  friendly  cohesive  forces  of  trade  and  travel. 
It  keeps  back  self-government  and  the  progress  of  man. 

And  the  tropics  cry  out  for  sanitation,  which  is  at  first 
an  essentially  military  task. 

A  strange  idea  this  may  have  seemed  in  August,  1913, 
a  year  before  the  outbreak  of  the  European  war ;  yet  the 
scheme  is  not  dissimilar  to  the  "mandatory"  principle, 
adopted  by  the  Versailles  Peace  Conference  as  the  only 
practical  method  of  dealing  with  backward  peoples.  In 
this  work,  as  in  everything  that  would  help  mankind  on 
its  weary  way  to  a  more  efficient  and  more  democratic 
civilization,  Page  regarded  the  United  States,  Great 
Britain,  and  the  British  Dominions  as  inevitable  partners. 
Anything  that  would  bring  these  two  nations  into  a 
closer  cooperation  he  looked  upon  as  a  step  making  for 
human  advancement.  He  believed  that  any  opportunity 
of  sweeping  away  misconceptions  and  prejudices  and  of 
impressing  upon  the  two  peoples  their  common  mission 
should  be  eagerly  seized  by  the  statesmen  of  the 
two  countries.  And  circumstances  at  this  particular 


274      THE  LIFE  AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER  H.   PAGE 

moment,  Page  believed,  presented  a  large  opportunity  of 
this  kind.  It  is  one  of  the  minor  ironies  of  modern 
history  that  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  should 
have  selected  1914  as  a  year  for  a  great  peace  celebration. 
That  year  marked  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the 
signing  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  which  ended  the  War  of 
1812,  and  in  1913  comprehensive  plans  had  already  been 
formed  for  observing  this  impressive  centennial.  The 
plan  was  to  make  it  more  than  the  mere  observance  of  a 
hundred  years  of  peaceful  intercourse;  it  was  the  inten- 
tion to  use  the  occasion  to  emphasize  the  fundamental 
identity  of  American  and  British  ideals  and  to  lay  the 
foundation  of  a  permanent  understanding  and  friend- 
ship. The  erection  of  a  monument  to  Abraham  Lincoln 
at  Westminster — a  plan  that  has  since  been  realized — 
was  one  detail  of  this  programme.  Another  was  the  res- 
toration of  Sulgrave  Manor,  the  English  country  seat  of 
the  Washingtons,  and  its  preservation  as  a  place  where 
the  peoples  of  both  countries  could  share  their  common 
traditions.  Page  now  dared  to  hope  that  President 
Wilson  might  associate  himself  with  this  great  purpose  to 
the  extent  of  coming  to  England  and  accepting  this 
gift  in  the  name  of  the  American  nation.  Such  a  Presi- 
dential visit,  he  believed,  would  exercise  a  mighty  in- 
fluence in  forestalling  a  threatening  European  war. 
The  ultimate  purpose,  that  is,  was  world  peace — pre- 
cisely the  same  motive  that  led  President  Wilson,  in  1919, 
to  make  a  European  pilgrimage. 

This  idea  was  no  passing  fancy  with  Page:  it  was  with 
him  a  favourite  topic  of  conversation.  Such  a  presiden- 
tial visit,  he  believed,  would  accomplish  more  than  any 
other  influences  in  dissipating  the  clouds  that  were 
darkening  the  European  landscape.  He  would  elaborate 
the  idea  at  length  in  discussions  with  his  intimates. 


AMERICA  TRIES  TO  PREVENT   WAR  275 

"What  I  want,"  he  would  say,  "is  to  have  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  and  the  King  of  England  stand 
up  side  by  side  and  let  the  world  take  a  good  look  at 
them!" 

To  Edward  M.  House 

August  25,  1913. 

.  .  .  I  wrote  him  (President  Wilson)  my  plan — a 
mere  outline.  He'll  only  smile  now.  But  when  the 
tariff  and  the  currency  and  Mexico  are  off  his  hands,  and 
when  he  can  be  invited  to  come  and  deliver  an  oration 
on  George  Washington  next  year  at  the  presentation  of 
the  old  Washington  homestead  here,  he  may  be  "  pushed 
over."  You  do  the  pushing.  Mrs.  Page  has  invited  the 
young  White  House  couple  to  visit  us  on  their  honey- 
moon.1 Encourage  that  and  that  may  encourage  the 
larger  plan  later.  Nothing  else  would  give  such  a  friendly 
turn  to  the  whole  world  as  the  President's  coming  here. 
The  old  Earth  would  sit  up  and  rub  its  eyes  and  take 
notice  to  whom  it  belongs.  This  visit  might  prevent 
an  English-German  war  and  an  American-Japanese  war, 
by  this  mere  show  of  friendliness.  It  would  be  one  of 
the  greatest  occasions  of  our  time.  Even  at  my  little 
speeches,  they  "whoop  it  up!"  What  would  they  do 
over  the  President's! 

But  at  that  time  Washington  was  too  busy  with  its 
domestic  programme  to  consider  such  a  proposal  seriously. 
"Your  two  letters,"  wrote  Colonel  House  in  reply,  "have 
come  to  me  and  lifted  me  out  of  the  rut  of  things  and 
given  me  a  glimpse  of  a  fair  land.  What  you  are  think- 
ing of  and  what  you  want  this  Administration  to  do  is 

JMr.   and   Mrs.   Francis   B.  Sayre,   son-in-law   and    daughter   of  President 
Wilson. 


276       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

beyond  the  power  of  accomplishment  for  the  moment. 
My  desk  is  covered  with  matters  of  no  lasting  importance, 
but  which  come  to  me  as  a  part  of  the  day's  work,  and 
which  must  be  done  if  I  am  to  help  lift  the  load  that  is 
pressing  upon  the  President.  It  tells  me  better  than 
anything  else  what  he  has  to  bear,  and  how  utterly  futile 
it  is  for  him  to  attempt  such  problems  as  you  present." 

From  the  President 

MY  DEAR  PAGE: 

.  .  .  As  for  your  suggestion  that  I  should  myself 
visit  England  during  my  term  of  office,  I  must  say  that  I 
agree  with  all  your  arguments  for  it,  and  yet  the  case 
against  the  President's  leaving  the  country,  particularly 
now  that  he  is  expected  to  exercise  a  constant  leader- 
ship in  all  parts  of  the  business  of  the  government,  is 
very  strong  and  I  am  afraid  overwhelming.  It  might 
be  the  beginning  of  a  practice  of  visiting  foreign  countries 
which  would  lead  Presidents  rather  far  afield. 

It  is  a  most  attractive  idea,  I  can  assure  you,  and  I 
turn  away  from  it  with  the  greatest  reluctance. 

We  hear  golden  opinions  of  the  impression  you  are 
making  in  England,  and  I  have  only  to  say  that  it  is 
just  what  I  had  expected. 

Cordially  and  faithfully  yours, 

WOODROW  WILSON. 
HON.  WALTER  H.  PAGE, 

American  Embassy, 
London,  England. 

In  December,  however,  evidently  Colonel  House's  mind 
had  turned  to  the  general  subject  that  had  so  engaged 
that  of  the  Ambassador. 


AMERICA  TRIES  TO   PREVENT   WAR  277 

From  Edward  M.  House 

145  East  35th  Street, 

New  York  City. 
December  13th,  1913. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

In  my  budget  of  yesterday  I  did  not  tell  you  of 
the  suggestion  which  I  made  to  Sir  William  Tyrrell 
when  he  was  here,  and  which  I  also  made  to  the  Presi- 
dent. 

It  occurred  to  me  that  between  us  all  we  might  bring 
about  the  naval  holiday  which  Winston  Churchill  has 
proposed.  My  plan  is  that  I  should  go  to  Germany  in 
the  spring  and  see  the  Kaiser,  and  try  to  win  him  over 
to  the  thought  that  is  uppermost  in  our  mind  and  that 
of  the  British  Government. 

Sir  William  thought  there  was  a  good  sporting  chance 
of  success.  He  offered  to  let  me  have  all  the  correspond- 
ence that  had  passed  between  the  British  and  German 
governments  upon  this  question  so  that  I  might  be  thor- 
oughly informed  as  to  the  position  of  them  both.  He 
thought  I  should  go  directly  to  Germany  without  stop- 
ping in  England,  and  that  Gerard  should  prepare  the 
Kaiser  for  my  coming,  telling  him  of  my  relations  with  the 
President.  He  thought  this  would  be  sufficient  without 
any  further  credentials. 

In  other  words,  he  would  do  with  the  Kaiser  what  you 
did  with  Sir  Edward  Grey  last  summer. 

I  spoke  to  the  President  about  the  matter  and  he 
seemed  pleased  with  the  suggestion;  in  fact,  I  might  say, 
he  was  enthusiastic.  He  said,  just  as  Sir  William  did, 
that  it  would  be  too  late  for  this  year's  budget;  but  he 
made  a  suggestion  that  he  get  the  Appropriations  Commit- 
tee to  incorporate  a  clause,  permitting  him  to  eliminate 


278       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER  H.    PAGE 

certain  parts  of  the  battleship  budget  in  the  event  that 
other  nations  declared  for  a  naval  holiday.  So  this  will 
be  done  and  will  further  the  plan. 

Now  I  want  to  get  you  into  the  game.  If  you  think  it 
advisable,  take  the  matter  up  with  Sir  William  Tyrrell 
and  then  with  Sir  Edward  Grey,  or  directly  with  Sir 
Edward,  if  you  prefer,  and  give  me  the  benefit  of  your 
advice  and  conclusions. 

Please  tell  Sir  William  that  I  lunched  at  the  Embassy 
with  the  Spring  Rices  yesterday,  and  had  a  satisfactory 
talk  with  both  Lady  Spring  Rice  and  Sir  Cecil. 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 


It  is  apparent  from  Page's  letters  that  the  suggestion 
now  contained  in  Colonel  House's  communication  would 
receive  a  friendly  hearing.  The  idea  that  Colonel  House 
suggested  was  merely  the  initial  stage  of  a  plan  which  soon 
took  on  more  ambitious  proportions.  At  the  time  of  Sir 
William  Tyrrell's  American  visit,  the  Winston  Churchill 
proposal  for  a  naval  holiday  was  being  actively  dis- 
cussed by  the  British  and  the  American  press.  In  one 
form  or  another  it  had  been  figuring  in  the  news  for  nearly 
two  years.  Viscount  Haldane,  in  the  course  of  his 
famous  visit  to  Berlin  in  February,  1912,  had  attempted 
to  reach  some  understanding  with  the  German  Govern- 
ment on  the  limitation  of  the  German  and  the  British 
fleets.  The  Agadir  crisis  of  the  year  before  had  left 
Europe  with  a  bad  state  of  nerves,  and  there  was  a  gen- 
eral belief  that  only  some  agreement  on  shipbuilding  could 
prevent  a  European  war.  Lord  Haldane  and  von  Tir- 
pitz  spent  many  hours  discussing  the  relative  sizes  of  the 
two  navies,  but  the  discussions  led  to  no  definite  under- 


AMERICA  TRIES   TO   PREVENT   WAR  279 

standing.  In  March,  1913,  Mr.  Churchill,  then  First 
Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  took  up  the  same  subject  in  a 
different  form.  In  this  speech  he  first  used  the  words 
"naval  holiday,"  and  proposed  that  Germany  and  Great 
Britain  should  cease  building  first-class  battleships  for  one 
year,  thus  giving  the  two  nations  a  breathing  space,  during 
which  time  they  might  discuss  their  future  plans  in  the  hope 
of  reaching  a  permanent  agreement.  The  matter  lagged 
again  until  October  18, 1913,  when,  in  a  speech  at  Manches- 
ter, Mr.  Churchill  placed  his  proposal  in  this  form:  "Now, 
we  say  to  our  great  neighbour,  Germany,  *  If  you  will  put  off 
beginning  your  two  ships  for  twelve  months  from  the  ordi- 
nary date  when  you  would  have  begun  them,  we  will  put  off 
beginning  our  four  ships,  in  absolute  good  faith,  for  ex- 
actly the  same  period."  About  the  same  time  Premier 
Asquith  made  it  clear  that  the  Ministry  was  back  of  the 
suggested  programme.  In  Germany,  however,  the  "na- 
val holiday"  soon  became  an  object  of  derision.  The 
official  answer  was  that  Germany  had  a  definite  naval 
law  and  that  the  Government  could  not  entertain  any 
suggestion  of  departing  from  it.  Great  Britain  then 
answered  that,  for  every  keel  Germany  laid  down,  the 
Admiralty  would  lay  down  two.  The  outcome,  there- 
fore, of  this  attempt  at  friendship  was  that  the  two  nations 
had  been  placed  farther  apart  than  ever. 

The  dates  of  this  discussion,  it  will  be  observed,  almost 
corresponded  with  the  period  covered  by  the  Tyrrell 
visit  to  America.  This  fact,  and  Page's  letters  of  this 
period,  had  apparently  implanted  in  Colonel  House's  mind 
an  ambition  for  definite  action.  He  now  proposed  that 
President  Wilson  should  take  up  the  broken  threads  of 
the  rapprochement  and  attempt  to  bring  them  together 
again.  From  this,  as  will  be  made  plain,  the  plan  de- 
veloped into  something  more  comprehensive.  Page's 


280       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

ideas  on  the  treatment  of  backward  nations  had  strongly 
impressed  both  the  President  and  Colonel  House.  The 
discussion  on  Mexico  which  had  just  taken  place  be- 
tween the  American  and  the  British  Governments  seemed 
to  have  developed  ideas  that  could  have  a  much  wider 
application.  The  fundamental  difficulties  in  Mexico 
were  not  peculiar  to  that  country  nor  indeed  to  Latin- 
America.  Perhaps  the  most  prolific  cause  of  war  among 
the  more  enlightened  countries  was  that  produced  by  the 
jealousies  and  antagonisms  which  were  developed  by  their 
contacts  with  unprogressive  peoples — in  the  Balkans,  the 
Ottoman  Empire,  Asia,  and  the  Far  East.  The  method 
of  dealing  with  such  peoples,  which  the  United  States 
had  found  so  successful  in  Cuba  and  the  Philippines,  had 
proved  that  there  was  just  one  honourable  way  of  dealing 
with  the  less  fortunate  and  more  primitive  races  in  all 
parts  of  the  world.  Was  it  not  possible  to  bring  the 
greatest  nations,  especially  the  United  States,  Great 
Britain,  and  Germany,  to  some  agreement  on  this  ques- 
tion, as  well  as  on  the  question  of  disarmament  ?  This 
once  accomplished,  the  way  could  be  prepared  for  joint 
action  on  the  numerous  other  problems  which  were  then 
threatening  the  peace  of  the  world.  The  League  of 
Nations  was  then  not  even  a  phrase,  but  the  plan  that 
was  forming  in  Colonel  House's  mind  was  at  least  some 
scheme  for  permanent  international  cooperation.  For 
several  years  Germany  had  been  the  nation  which  had 
proved  the  greatest  obstacle  to  such  international  friend- 
liness and  arbitration.  The  Kaiser  had  destroyed  both 
Hague  Conferences  as  influential  forces  in  the  remaking  of 
the  world;  and  in  the  autumn  of  1913  he  had  taken  on  a 
more  belligerent  attitude  than  ever.  If  this  attempt  to  es- 
tablish a  better  condition  of  things  was  to  succeed,  Ger- 
many's cooperation  would  be  indispensable.  This  is  the 


AMERICA   TRIES   TO   PREVENT   WAR  281 

reason  why  Colonel  House  proposed  first  of  all  to  visit 
Berlin. 

From  Edward  M.  House 

145  East  35th  Street, 

New  York  City. 
January  4th,  1914. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

.  .  .  Benj.  Ide  Wheeler1  took  lunch  with  me  the 
other  day.  He  is  just  back  from  Germany  and  he  is  on 
the  most  intimate  terms  with  the  Kaiser.  He  tells  me  he 
often  takes  dinner  with  the  family  alone,  and  spends  the 
evening  with  them. 

I  know,  now,  the  different  Cabinet  officials  who  have  the 
Kaiser 's  confidence  and  I  know  his  attitude  toward  England, 
naval  armaments,  war,  and  world  politics  in  general. 

Wheeler  spoke  to  me  very  frankly  and  the  information 
he  gave  me  will  be  invaluable  in  the  event  that  my 
plans  carry.  The  general  idea  is  to  bring  about  a  sym-  ,  / 
pathetic  understanding  between  England,  Germany,  and 
America,  not  only  upon  the  question  of  disarmament,  but 
upon  other  matters  of  equal  importance  to  themselves, 
and  to  the  world  at  large. 

It  seems  to  me  that  Japan  should  come  into  this  pact, 
but  Wheeler  tells  me  that  the  Kaiser  feels  very  strongly 
upon  the  question  of  Asiatics.  He  thinks  the  contest  of 
the  future  will  be  between  the  Eastern  and  Western  civi- 
lizations. .  .  . 

Your  friend  always, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

By  January  4,  1914,  the  House- Wilson  plan  had  thus 
grown  into  an  Anglo-American-German  "pact,"  to  deal 

1  Ex-President  of  the  University  of  California,  Roosevelt  Professor  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Berlin,  1909-10. 


282       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER  H.    PAGE 

not  only  with  "disarmament,  but  other  matters  of  equal 
importance  to  themselves  and  to  the  world  at  large." 
Page's  response  to  this  idea  was  consistent  and  char- 
acteristic. He  had  no  faith  in  Germany  and  believed 
that  the  existence  of  Kaiserism  was  incompatible  with 
the  extension  of  the  democratic  ideal.  Even  at  this 
early  time — eight  months  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
World  War — he  had  no  enthusiasm  for  anything  in  the 
nature  of  an  alliance,  or  a  "pact,"  that  included  Ger- 
many as  an  equal  partner.  He  did,  however,  have  great 
faith  in  the  cooperation  of  the  English-speaking  peoples 
as  a  force  that  would  make  for  permanent  peace  and 
international  justice.  In  his  reply  to  Colonel  House, 
therefore,  Page  fell  back  at  once  upon  his  favourite  plan 
for  an  understanding  between  the  United  States,  Great 
Britain,  and  the  British  colonies.  That  he  would  com- 
pletely sympathize  with  the  Washington  aspiration  for 
disarmament  was  to  be  expected. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

January  2,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  HOUSE: 

You  have  set  my  imagination  going.  I've  been  thinking 
of  this  thing  for  months,  and  now  you've  given  me  a  fresh 
start.  It  can  be  worked  out  somehow— doubtless,  not 
in  the  form  that  anybody  may  at  first  see;  but  experiment 
and  frank  discussion  will  find  a  way. 

As  I  think  of  it,  turning  it  this  way  and  that,  there 
always  comes  to  me  just  as  I  am  falling  to  sleep  this 
reflection:  the  English-speaking  peoples  now  rule  the 
world  in  all  essential  facts.  They  alone  and  Switzerland 
have  permanent  free  government.  In  France  there's 
freedom — but  for  how  long?  In  Germany  and  Austria 
— hardly.  In  the  Scandinavian  States — yes,  but  they 


AMERICA  TRIES  TO   PREVENT   WAR  283 

are  small  and  exposed  as  are  Belgium  and  Holland.  In 
the  big  secure  South  American  States — yes,  it's  coming. 
In  Japan — ?  Only  the  British  lands  and  the  United 
States  have  secure  liberty.  They  also  have  the  most 
treasure,  the  best  fighters,  the  most  land,  the  most  ships — 
the  future  in  fact. 

Now,  because  George  Washington  warned  us  against 
alliances,  we've  gone  on  as  if  an  alliance  were  a  kind  of 
smallpox.  Suppose  there  were — let  us  say  for  argument's 
sake — the  tightest  sort  of  an  alliance,  offensive  and  de- 
fensive, between  all  Britain,  colonies  and  all,  and  the 
United  States — what  would  happen?  Anything  we'd 
say  would  go,  whether  we  should  say,  "Come  in  out  of 
the  wet,"  or,  "  Disarm."  That  might  be  the  beginning  of 
a  real  world-alliance  and  union  to  accomplish  certain 
large  results — disarmament,  for  instance,  or  arbitration 
— dozens  of  good  things. 

Of  course,  we'd  have  to  draw  and  quarter  the  O'Gor- 
mans.1  But  that  ought  to  be  done  anyhow  in  the  general 
interest  of  good  sense  in  the  world.  We  could  force  any 
nation  into  this  "trust"  that  we  wanted  in  it. 

Isn't  it  time  we  tackled  such  a  job  frankly,  fighting  out 
the  Irish  problem  once  for  all,  and  having  done  with  it? 

I'm  not  proposing  a  programme.  I'm  only  thinking 
out  loud.  I  see  little  hope  of  doing  anything  so  long  as 
we  choose  to  be  ruled  by  an  obsolete  remark  made  by 
George  Washington.  w 

January  11,  1914. 

.  .  .  But  this  armament  flurry  is  worth  serious 
thought.  Lloyd  George  gave  out  an  interview,  seeming 
to  imply  the  necessity  of  reducing  the  navy  programme. 

Uames  A.  O'Gorman  was  the  anti-British  Senator  from  New  York  State  at 
this  time  working  hard  against  the  repeal  of  the  Panama  tolls  discrimination. 


284       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

The  French  allies  of  the  British  went  up  in  the  air !  They 
raised  a  great  howl.  Churchill  went  to  see  them,  to 
soothe  them.  They  would  not  be  soothed.  Now  the 
Prime  Minister  is  going  to  Paris — ostensibly  to  see  his 
daughter  off  to  the  Riviera.  Nobody  believes  that  reason. 
They  say  he's  going  to  smooth  out  the  French.  Mean- 
time the  Germans  are  gleeful. 

And  the  British  Navy  League  is  receiving  money  and 
encouraging  letters  from  British  subjects,  praying  greater 
activity  to  keep  the  navy  up.  You  touch  the  navy  and 
you  touch  the  quick — that's  the  lesson.  It's  an  enor- 
mous excitement  that  this  small  incident  has  caused. 

W.  H.  P. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

London,  February  24,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  HOUSE  : 

You'll  be  interested  in  these  pamphlets  by  Sir  Max 
Waechter,  who  has  opened  an  office  here  and  is  spending 
much  money  to  "federate"  Europe,  and  to  bring  a  lessen- 
ing of  armaments.  I  enclose  also  an  article  about  him 
from  the  Daily  Telegraph,  which  tells  how  he  has  inter- 
viewed most  of  the  Old  World  monarchs.  Get  also, 
immediately,  the  new  two-volume  life  of  Lord  Lyons, 
Minister  to  the  United  States  during  the  Civil  War,  and 
subsequently  Ambassador  to  France.  You  will  find  an 
interesting  account  of  the  campaign  of  about  1870  to  re- 
duce armaments,  when  old  Bismarck  dumped  the  whole 
basket  of  apples  by  marching  against  France.  You 
know  I  sometimes  fear  some  sort  of  repetition  of  that 
experience.  Some  government  (probably  Germany)  will 
see  bankruptcy  staring  it  in  the  face  and  the  easiest  way 
out  will  seem  a  great  war.  Bankruptcy  before  a  war 
would  be  ignominious;  after  a  war,  it  could  be  charged  to 


AMERICA  TRIES  TO   PREVENT   WAR  285 

"Glory."  It'll  take  a  long  time  to  bankrupt  England. 
It's  unspeakably  rich;  they  pay  enormous  taxes,  but  they 
pay  them  out  of  their  incomes,  not  out  of  their  principal, 
except  their  inheritance  tax.  That  looks  to  me  as  if  it 
came  out  of  the  principal.  .  .  . 

I  hope  you  had  a  good  time  in  Texas  and  escaped  some 
cold  weather.  This  deceptive  sort  of  winter  here  is 
grippe-laden.  I've  had  the  thing,  but  I'm  now  getting 
over  it.  ... 

This  Benton^Mexican  business  is  causing  great  ex- 
citement here. 

Always  heartily  yours, 

W.  H.  P. 

P.  S.  There's  nothing  like  the  President.  By  George ! 
the  passage  of  the  arbitration  treaty  (renewal)  almost 
right  off  the  bat,  and  apparently  the  tolls  discrimination 
coming  presently  to  its  repeal!  Sir  Edward  Grey  re- 
marked to  me  yesterday:  "Things  are  clearing  up!" 
I  came  near  saying  to  him:  "Have  you  any  miracles  in 
mind  that  you'd  like  to  see  worked?"  Wilson  stock  is  at 
a  high  premium  on  this  side  of  the  water  in  spite  of  the 
momentary  impatience  caused  by  Benton's  death. 

W.  H.  P. 
From  Edward  M.  House 

145  East  35th  Street, 

New  York  City. 

April  19th,  1914. 
DEAR  PAGE  : 

I  have  had  a  long  talk  with  Mr.  Laughlin.2  At  first  he 
thought  I  would  not  have  more  than  one  chance  in  a 

1  In  February,  1915,  William  S.  Benton,  an  English  subject  who  had  spent  the 
larger  part  of  his  life  in  Mexico,  was  murdered  in  the  presence  of  Francisco  Villa. 

2 Mr.  Irwin  Laughlin,  first  secretary  of  the  American  Embassy  in  London;  at 
this  time  spending  a  few  weeks  in  the  United  States. 


286       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

million  to  do  anything  with  the  Kaiser,  but  after  talking 
with  him  further,  he  concluded  that  I  would  have  a  fairly 
good  sporting  chance.  I  have  about  concluded  to  take  it. 

If  I  can  do  anything,  I  can  do  it  in  a  few  days.  I  was 
with  the  President  most  of  last  week.  .  .  . 

He  spoke  of  your  letters  to  him  and  to  me  as  being 
classics,  and  said  they  were  the  best  letters,  as  far  as  he 
knew,  that  any  one  had  ever  written.  Of  course  you 
know  how  heartily  I  concur  in  this.  He  said  that  some- 
time they  should  be  published. 

The  President  is  now  crystallizing  his  mind  in  regard  to 
the  Federal  Reserve  Board,  and  if  you  are  not  to  remain 
in  London,  then  he  would  probably  put  Houston  on  the 
Board  and  ask  you  to  take  the  Secretaryship  of  Agricul- 
ture. 

You  have  no  idea  the  feeling  that  is  being  aroused  by 
the  tolls  question.  The  Hearst  papers  are  screaming  at 
all  of  us  every  day.  They  have  at  last  honoured  me  with 
their  abuse.  .  .  .  •< 

With  love  and  best  wishes,  I  am, 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

From  Edward  M.  House 

145  East  35th  Street, 

New  York  City. 

April  20th,  1914. 
DEAR  PAGE  : 

.  .  .  It  is  our  purpose  to  sail  on  the  Imperator, 
May  16th,  and  go  directly  to  Germany.  I  expect  to  be 
there  a  week  or  more,  but  Mrs.  House  will  reach  London 
by  the  1st  or  2nd  of  June.  .  .  . 

Our  friend1  in  Washington  thinks  it  is  worth  while  for 

1  Obviously  President  Wilson. 


AMERICA  TRIES  TO  PREVENT   WAR  287 

me  to  go  to  Germany,  and  that  determines  the  matter. 
The  press  is  shrieking  to-day  over  the  Mexican  situation, 
but  I  hope  they  will  be  disappointed.  It  is  not  the  in- 
tention to  do  anything  further  for  the  moment  than  to 
blockade  the  ports,  and  unless  some  overt  act  is  made 
from  the  North,  our  troops  will  not  cross  the  border. 

Your  friend  always, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

London,  April  27,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  HOUSE: 

Of  course  you  decided  wisely  to  carry  out  your  original 
Berlin  plan,  and  you  ought  never  to  have  had  a  mo- 
ment's hesitation,  if  you  did  have  any  hesitation.  I  do 
not  expect  you  to  produce  any  visible  or  immediate  re- 
sults. I  hope  I  am  mistaken  in  this.  But  you  know  that 
the  German  Government  has  a  well-laid  progressive  plan 
for  shipbuilding  for  a  certain  number  of  years.  I  believe 
that  the  work  has,  in  fact,  already  been  arranged  for. 
But  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  You  are  going 
to  see  what  effect  you  can  produce  on  the  mind  of  a 
man.  Perhaps  you  will  never  know  just  what  effect  you 
will  produce.  Yet  the  fact  that  you  are  who  you  are, 
that  you  make  this  journey  for  this  especial  purpose,  that 
you  are  everlastingly  right — these  are  enough. 

Moreover,  you  can't  ever  tell  results,  nor  can  you  af- 
ford to  make  your  plans  in  this  sort  of  high  work  with  the 
slightest  reference  to  probable  results.  That's  the  big- 
ness and  the  glory  of  it.  Any  ordinary  man  can,  on  any 
ordinary  day,  go  and  do  a  task,  the  favourable  results 
of  which  may  be  foreseen.  That's  easy.  The  big  thing 
is  to  go  confidently  to  work  on  a  task,  the  results  of 
which  nobody  can  possibly  foresee — a  task  so  vague  and 


288       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

improbable  of  definite  results  that  small  men  hesitate. 
It  is  in  this  spirit  that  very  many  of  the  biggest  things  in 
history  have  been  done.  Wasn't  the  purchase  of  Louisi- 
ana such  a  thing?  Who'd  ever  have  supposed  that  that 
could  have  been  brought  about?  I  applaud  your  errand 
and  I  am  eagerly  impatient  to  hear  the  results*  When 
will  you  get  here?  I  assume  that  Mrs.  House  will  not 
go  with  you  to  Berlin.  No  matter  so  you  both  turn  up 
here  for  a  good  long  stay. 

I've  taken  me  a  little  bit  of  a  house  about  twenty 
miles  out  of  town  whither  we  are  going  in  July  as  soon 
as  we  can  get  away  from  London.  I  hope  to  stay  down 
there  till  far  into  October,  coming  up  to  London  about 
thrice  a  week.  That's  the  dull  season  of  the  year.  It's 
a  charming  little  country  place — big  enough  for  you  to 
visit  us.  ... 

From  Edward  M.  House 

An  Bord  des  Dampfers  Imperator 

den  May  21,  1914. 
Hamburg-Amerika  Linie 

DEAR  PAGE: 

Here  we  are  again.  The  Wallaces1  land  at  Cherbourg, 
Friday  morning,  and  we  of  course  go  on  to  Berlin.  I 
wish  I  might  have  the  benefit  of  your  advice  just  now,  for 
the  chances  for  success  in  this  great  adventure  are  slender 
enough  at  best.  The  President  has  done  his  part  in  the 
letter  I  have  with  me,  and  it  is  clearly  up  to  me  to  do 
mine.  .  .  . 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

1  Mr.  Hugh  C.  Wallace,  afterward  Ambassador  to  France,  and  Mrs.  Wallace. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wallace  accompanied  Mr.  and  Mrs.  House  on  this  journey. 


AMERICA  TRIES  TO   PREVENT   WAR  289 

It  will  be  observed  that  Colonel  House  had  taken  the 
advice  of  Sir  William  Tyrrell,  and  had  sailed  directly  to 
Germany  on  a  German  ship — the  Imperator.  Ambas- 
sador Gerard  had  made  preparations  for  his  reception  in 
Berlin,  and  the  American  soon  had  long  talks  with  Ad- 
miral von  Tirpitz,  Falkenhayn,  Von  Jagow,  Solf,  and 
others.  Von  Bethmann-Hollweg's  wife  died  almost  on 
the  day  of  his  arrival  in  Berlin,  so  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  see  the  Chancellor — the  man  who  would  have 
probably  been  the  most  receptive  to  these  peace  ideas. 
All  the  leaders  of  the  government,  except  Von  Tirpitz, 
gave  Colonel  House's  proposals  a  respectful  if.  somewhat 
cynical  hearing.  Von  Tirpitz  was  openly  and  demon- 
stratively hostile.  The  leader  of  the  German  Navy  simply  J 
bristled  with  antagonism  at  any  suggestion  for  peace 
or  disarmament  or  world  cooperation.  He  consumed  a 
large  part  of  the  time  which  Colonel  House  spent  with 
him  denouncing  England  and  all  its  works.  Hatred 
of  the  "Island  Kingdom"  was  apparently  the  consuming 
passion  of  his  existence.  On  the  whole,  Von  Tirpitz 
thus  made  no  attempt  to  conceal  his  feeling  that  the  pur- 
pose of  the  House  mission  was  extremely  distasteful  to 
him.  The  other  members  of  the  Government,  while  not 
so  tactlessly  hostile,  were  not  particularly  encouraging. 
The  usual  objections  to  disarmament  were  urged — the 
fear  of  other  Powers,  the  walled-in  state  of  Germany,  the 
vigilant  enemies  against  which  it  was  necessary  con- 
stantly to  be  prepared  and  watchful.  Even  more  than 
the  unsympathetic  politeness  of  the  German  Cabinet 
the  general  atmosphere  of  Berlin  was  depressing  to  Colo- 
nel House.  The  militaristic  oligarchy  was  absolutely  in 
control.  Militarism  possessed  not  only  the  army,  the 
navy,  and  the  chief  officers  of  state,  but  the  populace  as 
well.  One  almost  trivial  circumstance  has  left  a  lasting 


290       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER    H.    PAGE 

impression  on  Colonel  House's  mind.  Ambassador  Gerard 
took  him  out  one  evening  for  a  little  relaxation.  Both 
Mr.  Gerard  and  Colonel  House  were  fond  of  target  shoot- 
ing and  the  two  men  sought  one  of  the  numerous  rifle 
galleries  of  Berlin.  They  visited  gallery  after  gallery, 
but  could  not  get  into  one.  Great  crowds  lined  up  at 
every  place,  waiting  their  turns  at  the  target;  it  seemed 
as  though  every  able-bodied  man  in  Berlin  was  spending 
all  his  time  improving  his  marksmanship.  But  this  was 
merely  a  small  indication  of  the  atmosphere  of  militarism 
which  prevailed  in  the  larger  aspects  of  life.  Colonel 
House  found  himself  in  a  strange  place  to  preach  inter- 
national accord  for  the  ending  of  war ! 

He  had  come  to  Berlin  not  merely  to  talk  with  the 
Cabinet  heads;  his  goal  was  the  Kaiser  himself.  But  he 
perceived  at  once  a  persistent  opposition  to  his  plan. 
As  he  was  the  President's  personal  representative,  and 
carried  a  letter  from  the  President  to  the  Kaiser,  an  audi- 
ence could  not  be  refused — indeed,  it  had  already  been 
duly  arranged;  but  there  was  a  quiet  opposition  to  his 
consorting  with  the ' 'All  Highest ' '  alone.  It  was  not  usual, 
Colonel  House  was  informed,  for  His  Imperial  Majesty 
to  discuss  such  matters  except  in  the  presence  of  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  Foreign  Office.  Germany  had  not  yet 
recovered  from  the  shock  which  the  Emperor's  conversa- 
tion with  certain  foreign  correspondents  had  given  the 
nation.  The  effects  were  still  felt  of  the  famous  interviews 
of  October  28,  1908,  which,  when  published  in  the  Lon- 
don Telegraph,  had  caused  the  bitterest  resentment  in 
Great  Britain.  The  Kaiser  had  given  his  solemn  word 
that  he  would  indulge  in  no  more  indiscretions  of  this 
sort,  and  a  private  interview  with  Colonel  House  was  re- 
garded by  his  advisers  as  a  possible  infraction  of  that 
promise.  But  the  American  would  not  be  denied.  He 


AMERICA  TRIES  TO   PREVENT   WAR  291 

knew  that  an  interview  with  a  third  person  present  would 
be  simply  time  thrown  away  since  his  message  was  in- 
tended for  the  Kaiser's  own  ears ;  and  ultimately  his  per- 
sistence succeeded.  The  next  Monday  would  be  June 
1st — a  great  day  in  Germany.  It  was  the  occasion  of  the 
Schrippenfest,  a  day  which  for  many  years  had  been  set 
aside  for  the  glorification  of  the  German  Army.  On  that 
festival,  the  Kaiser  entertained  with  great  pomp  repre- 
sentative army  officers  and  representative  privates,  as 
well  as  the  diplomatic  corps  and  other  distinguished 
foreigners.  Colonel  House  was  invited  to  attend  the 
Kaiser's  luncheon  on  that  occasion,  and  was  informed  that, 
after  this  function  was  over,  he  would  have  an  opportun- 
ity of  having  a  private  conversation  with  His  Majesty. 

The  affair  took  place  in  the  palace  at  Potsdam.  The 
militarism  which  Colonel  House  had  felt  so  oppressively 
in  Berlin  society  was  especially  manifest  on  this  occasion. 
There  were  two  luncheon  parties — that  of  the  Kaiser 
and  his  officers  and  guests  in  the  state  dining  room,  and 
that  of  the  selected  private  soldiers  outside.  The  Kaiser 
and  the  Kaiserin  spent  a  few  moments  with  their  humbler 
subjects,  drinking  beer  with  them  and  passing  a  few  com- 
radely remarks;  they  then  proceeded  to  the  large  dining 
hall  and  took  their  places  with  the  gorgeously  caparisoned 
and  bemedalled  chieftains  of  the  German  Army.  The 
whole  proceeding  has  an  historic  interest,  in  that  it  was 
the  last  Schrippenfest  held.  Whether  another  will  ever 
be  held  is  problematical,  for  the  occasion  was  an  inevitable 
part  of  the  trappings  of  Hohenzollernism.  Despite  the 
gravity  of  the  occasion,  Colonel  House's  chief  memory 
of  this  function  is  slightly  tinged  with  the  ludicrous.  He 
had  spent  the  better  part  of  a  lifetime  attempting  to 
rid  himself  of  his  military  title,  but  uselessly.  He  was 
now  embarrassed  because  these  solemn  German  officers 


292      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

persisted  in  regarding  him  as  an  important  part  of  the 
American  Army,  and  in  discussing  technical  and  strategi- 
cal problems.  The  visitor  made  several  attempts  to  ex- 
plain that  he  was  merely  a  "geographical  colonel" — 
that  the  title  was  constantly  conferred  in  an  informal 
sense  on  Americans,  especially  Southerners,  and  that  the 
handle  to  his  name  had,  therefore,  no  military  signifi- 
cance. But  the  round-faced  Teutons  stared  at  his  ex- 
planation in  blank  amazement;  they  couldn't  grasp  the 
point  at  all,  and  continued  to  ask  his  opinion  of  matters 
purely  military. 

When  the  lunch  was  finished,  the  Kaiser  took  Colonel 
House  aside,  and  the  two  men  withdrew  to  the  terrace, 
out  of  earshot  of  the  rest  of  the  gathering.  However, 
they  were  not  out  of  sight.  For  nearly  half  an  hour  the 
Kaiser  and  the  American  stood  side  by  side  upon  the  ter- 
race, the  German  generals,  at  a  respectful  distance,  watch- 
ing the  proceeding,  resentful,  puzzled,  curious  as  to  what  it 
was  all  about.  The  quiet  demeanour  of  the  American 
"  Colonel,"  his  plain  citizen's  clothes,  and  his  almost  impas- 
sive face,  formed  a  striking  contrast  to  the  Kaiser's  dazzling 
uniform  and  the  general  scene  of  military  display.  Two  or 
three  of  the  generals  and  admirals  present  were  in  the 
secret,  but  only  two  or  three ;  the  mass  of  officers  watching 
this  meeting  little  guessed  that  the  purpose  of  House's  visit 
was  to  persuade  the  Kaiser  to  abandon  everything  for 
which  the  Schrippenfest  stood ;  to  enter  an  international 
compact  with  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  for 
reducing  armaments,  to  reach  an  agreement  about  trade 
and  the  treatment  of  backward  peoples,  and  to  form 
something  of  a  permanent  association  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  peace.  The  one  thing  which  was  apparent  to  the 
watchers  was  that  the  American  was  only  now  and  then 
saying  a  brief  word,  but  that  the  Kaiser  was,  as  usual, 


Walter  H.  Page,  from  a  photograph  taken  a  few  years  before  he 
became  American  Ambassador  to  Great  Britain 


The  British  Foreign  Office,  Downing  Street 


AMERICA  TRIES  TO   PREVENT   WAR  293 

doing  a  vast  amount  of  talking.  His  speech  rattled  on 
with  the  utmost  animation,  his  arms  were  constantly 
gesticulating,  he  would  bring  one  fist  down  into  his  palm 
to  register  an  emphatic  point,  and  enforce  certain  ideas 
with  a  menacing  forefinger.  At  times  Colonel  House 
would  show  slight  signs  of  impatience  and  interrupt  the 
flow  of  talk.  But  the  Kaiser  was  clearly  absorbed  in  the 
subject  under  discussion.  His  entourage  several  times 
attempted  to  break  up  the  interview.  The  Court  Cham- 
berlain twice  gingerly  approached  and  informed  His 
Majesty  that  the  Imperial  train  was  waiting  to  take  the 
party  back  to  Berlin.  Each  time  the  Kaiser,  with  an 
angry  gesture,  waved  the  interrupter  away.  Despairing  of 
the  usual  resources,  the  Kaiserin  was  sent  with  the  same 
message.  The  Kaiser  did  not  treat  her  so  summarily,  but 
he  paid  no  attention  to  the  request,  and  continued  to  dis- 
cuss the  European  situation  with  the  American. 

The  subject  that  had  mainly  aroused  the  Imperial 
warmth  was  the  "Yellow  Peril."  For  years  this  had  been 
an  obsession  with  the  Kaiser,  and  he  launched  into  the 
subject  as  soon  as  Colonel  House  broached  the  purpose  of 
his  visit.  There  could  be  no  question  of  disarmament, 
the  Kaiser  vehemently  declared,  as  long  as  this  danger 
to  civilization  existed.  "We  white  nations  should  join 
hands,"  he  said,  "to  oppose  Japan  and  the  other  yellow 
nations,  or  some  day  they  will  destroy  us. " 

It  was  with  difficulty  that  Colonel  House  could  get 
His  Majesty  away  from  this  subject.  Whatever  topic 
he  touched  upon,  the  Kaiser  would  immediately  start 
declaiming  on  the  dangers  that  faced  Europe  from  the 
East.  His  insistence  on  this  accounted  partly  for  the 
slight  signs  of  impatience  which  the  American  showed. 
He  feared  that  all  the  time  allotted  for  the  interview  would 
be  devoted  to  discussing  the  Japanese.  About  another 


294       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

nation,  the  Kaiser  showed  almost  as  much  alarm  as  he 
did  about  Japan,  and  that  was  Russia.  He  spoke  con- 
temptuously of  France  and  Great  Britain  as  possible 
enemies,  for  he  apparently  had  no  fear  of  them.  But  the 
size  of  Russia  and  the  exposed  eastern  frontier  of  Ger- 
many seemed  to  appal  him.  How  could  Germany  join  a 
peace  pact,  and  reduce  its  army,  so  long  as  175,000,000 
Slavs  threatened  them  from  this  direction? 

Another  matter  that  the  Kaiser  discussed  with  de- 
rision was  Mr.  Bryan's  arbitration  treaty.  Practically 
all  the  great  nations  had  already  ratified  this  treaty  ex- 
cept Germany.  The  Kaiser  now  laughed  at  the  treaties 
and  pooh-poohed  Bryan.  Germany,  he  declared,  would 
never  accept  such  an  arbitration  plan.  Colonel  House 
had  particular  cause  to  remember  this  part  of  the  conver- 
sation three  years  afterward,  when  the  United  States 
declared  war  on  Germany.  The  outstanding  feature  of 
the  Bryan  treaty  was  the  clause  which  pledged  the  high 
contracting  parties  not  to  go  to  war  without  taking  a 
breathing  spell  of  one  year  in  which  to  think  the  matter 
over.  Had  Germany  adopted  this  treaty,  the  United 
States,  in  April,  1917,  after  Germany  had  presented  a 
casus  belli  by  resuming  unrestricted  submarine  warfare, 
could  not  have  gone  to  war.  We  should  have  been 
obliged  to  wait  a  year,  or  until  April,  1918,  before  en- 
gaging in  hostilities.  That  is,  an  honourable  observance 
of  this  Bryan  treaty  by  the  United  States  would  have 
meant  that  Germany  would  have  starved  Great  Britain 
into  surrender,  and  crushed  Europe  with  her  army.  Had 
the  Kaiser,  on  this  June  afternoon,  not  notified  Colonel 
House  that  Germany  would  not  accept  this  treaty,  but, 
instead,  had  notified  him  that  he  would  accept  it,  Wil- 
liam II  might  now  be  sitting  on  the  throne  of  a  victorious 
Germany,  with  Europe  for  a  footstool. 


AMERICA   TRIES   TO   PREVENT    WAR  295 

Despite  the  Kaiser's  hostile  attitude  toward  these  de- 
tails, his  general  reception  of  the  President's  proposals 
was  not  outwardly  unfriendly.  Perhaps  he  was  sincere, 
perhaps  not;  yet  the  fact  is  that  he  manifested  more 
cordiality  to  this  somewhat  vague  "get-together"  pro- 
posal than  had  any  of  his  official  advisers.  He  encouraged 
Colonel  House  to  visit  London,  talk  the  matter  over  with  \J 
British  statesmen,  and  then  return  to  Berlin. 

"The  last  thing,"  he  said,  "that  Germany  wants  is 
war.     We  are  getting  to  be  a  great  commercial  country. 
In  a  few  years  Germany  will  be  a  rich  country,  like  Eng-  ^j 
land  and  the  United  States.     We  don't  want  a  war  to 
interfere  with  our  progress." 

Any  peace  suggestion  that  was  compatible  with  German 
safety,  he  said,  would  be  entertained.    Yet  his  parting  v 
words  were  not  reassuring. 

"Every  nation  in  Europe,"  he  said,  "has  its  bayonets 
pointed  at  Germany.     But—         —and  with  this  he  gave  J 
a  proud  and  smiling  glance  at  the  glistening  representa- 
tives of  his  army  gathered  on  this  brilliant  occasion — 
"we  are  ready!" 

Colonel  House  left  Berlin,  not  particularly  hopeful; 
the  Kaiser  impressed  him  as  a  man  of  unstable  nervous 
organization — as  one  who  was  just  hovering  on  the  border- 
land of  insanity.  Certainly,  this  was  no  man  to  be  en- 
trusted with  such  powers  as  the  American  had  witnessed 
that  day  at  Potsdam.  Dangerous  as  the  Kaiser  was, 
however,  he  did  not  seem  to  Colonel  House  to  be  as  great 
a  menace  to  mankind  as  were  his  military  advisers.  The 
American  came  away  from  Berlin  with  the  conviction 
that  the  most  powerful  force  in  Germany  was  the  mili- 
taristic clique,  and  second,  the  Hohenzollern  dynasty. 
He  has  always  insisted  that  this  represented  the  real 
precedence  in  power.  So  long  as  the  Kaiser  was  obedient 


296       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

to  the  will  of  militarism,  so  long  could  he  maintain  his 
standing.  He  was  confident,  however,  that  the  mili- 
taristic oligarchy  was  determined  to  have  its  will,  and 
would  dethrone  the  Kaiser  the  moment  he  showed  in- 
dications of  taking  a  course  that  would  lead  to  peace. 
Colonel  House  was  also  convinced  that  this  militaristic 
oligarchy  was  determined  on  war.  The  coolness  with 
which  it  listened  to  his  proposals,  the  attempts  it  made 
to  keep  him  from  seeing  the  Kaiser  alone,  its  repeated 
efforts  to  break  up  the  conversation  after  it  had  begun, 
all  pointed  to  the  inevitable  tragedy.  The  fact  that  the 
Kaiser  expressed  a  wish  to  discuss  the  matter  again, 
after  Colonel  House  had  sounded  London,  was  the  one 
hopeful  feature  of  an  otherwise  discouraging  experience, 
and  accounts  for  the  tone  of  faint  optimism  in  his  letters 
describing  the  visit. 

From  Edward  M.  House 

Embassy  of  the  United  States  of  America, 

Berlin, 

May  28,  1914. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

.  .  .  I  have  done  something  here  already — not 
much,  but  enough  to  open  negotiations  with  London. 
I  lunch  with  the  Kaiser  on  Monday.  I  was  advised  to 
avoid  Admiral  von  Tirpitz  as  being  very  unsympathetic. 
However,  I  went  directly  at  him  and  had  a  most  interest- 
ing talk.  He  is  a  forceful  fellow.  Von  Jagow  is  pleasant 
but  not  forceful.  I  have  had  a  long  talk  with  him.  The 
Chancellor's  wife  died  last  week  so  I  have  not  got  in 
touch  with  him.  I  will  write  you  more  fully  from  Paris. 
My  address  there  will  be  Hotel  Ritz. 

Hastily, 

E.  M.  H, 


AMERICA   TRIES   TO   PREVENT   WAR  297 

From  Edward  M.  House 

Hotel  Ritz,  15,  Place  Vendome,  Paris. 

June  3,  1914. 
DEAR  PAGE  : 

I  had  a  satisfactory  talk  with  the  Kaiser  on  Monday. 
I  have  now  seen  everyone  worthwhile  in  Germany  except 
the  Chancellor.  I  am  ready  now  for  London.  Perhaps 
you  had  better  prepare  the  way.  The  Kaiser  knows  I 
am  to  see  them,  and  I  have  arranged  to  keep  him  in  touch 
with  results — if  there  are  any.  We  must  work  quickly 
after  I  arrive,  for  it  may  be  advisable  for  me  to  return  to 
Germany,  and  I  am  counting  on  sailing  for  home  July 
15th  or  28th.  ...  I  am  eager  to  see  you  and  tell 
you  what  I  know. 

Yours, 

E.  M.  H. 

Colonel  House  left  that  night  for  Paris,  but  there  the 
situation  was  a  hopeless  one.  France  was  not  thinking 
of  a  foreign  war;  it  was  engrossed  with  its  domestic 
troubles.  There  had  been  three  French  ministries  in  two 
weeks ;  and  the  trial  of  Madame  Caillaux  for  the  murder  of 
Gaston  Calmette,  editor  of  the  Paris  Figaro,  was  monop- 
olizing all  the  nation's  capacity  for  emotion.  Colonel 
House  saw  that  it  would  be  a  waste  of  energy  to  take  up 
his  mission  at  Paris — there  was  no  government  stable 
enough  to  make  a  discussion  worth  while.  He  therefore 
immediately  left  for  London. 

The  political  situation  in  Great  Britain  was  almost  as 
confused  as  that  in  Paris.  The  country  was  in  a  state 
approaching  civil  war  on  the  question  of  Home  Rule 
for  Ireland;  the  suffragettes  were  threatening  to  dyna- 
mite the  Houses  of  Parliament;  and  the  eternal  struggle 


298       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

between  the  Liberal  and  the  Conservative  elements  was 
raging  with  unprecedented  virulence.  A  European  war 
was  far  from  everybody's  mind.  It  was  this  utter  in- 
ability to  grasp  the  realities  of  the  European  situation 
which  proved  the  main  impediment  to  Colonel  House's 
work  in  England.  He  met  all  the  important  people — 
Mr.  Asquith,  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  Sir  Edward  Grey,  and 
others.  With  them  he  discussed  his  "pact"  proposal  in 
great  detail. 

Naturally,  ideas  of  this  sort  were  listened  to  sympa- 
thetically by  statesmen  of  the  stamp  of  Asquith,  Grey, 
and  Lloyd  George.  The  difficulty,  however,  was  that 
none  of  these  men  apprehended  an  immediate  war.  They 
saw  no  necessity  of  hurrying  about  the  matter.  They  had 
the  utmost  confidence  in  Prince  Lichnowsky,  the  German 
Ambassador  in  London,  and  Von  Bethmann-Hollweg, 
the  German  Chancellor.  Both  these  men  were  regarded 
by  the  Foreign  Office  as  guarantees  against  a  German  at- 
tack; their  continuance  in  their  office  was  looked  upon 
as  an  assurance  that  Germany  entertained  no  immediately 
aggressive  plans.  Though  the  British  statesmen  did  not 
say  so  definitely,  the  impression  was  conveyed  that  the 
mission  on  which  Colonel  House  was  engaged  was  an 
\  unnecessary  one — a  preparation  against  a  danger  that 
did  not  exist.  Colonel  House  attempted  to  persuade 
Sir  Edward  Grey  to  visit  the  Kiel  regatta,  which  was  to 
take  place  in  a  few  days,  see  the  Kaiser,  and  discuss  the 
plan  with  him.  But  the  Government  feared  that  such  a 
visit  would  be  very  disturbing  to  France  and  Russia. 
Already  Mr.  Churchill's  proposal  for  a  "naval  holiday" 
had  so  wrought  up  the  French  that  a  hurried  trip  to 
France  by  Mr.  Asquith  had  been  necessary  to  quiet  them ; 
the  consternation  that  would  have  been  caused  in  Paris 
by  the  presence  of  Sir  Edward  Grey  at  Kiel  can  only  be 


AMERICA   TRIES   TO   PREVENT   WAR  299 

imagined.  The  fact  that  the  British  statesmen  enter- 
tained so  little  apprehension  of  a  German  attack  may 
possibly  be  a  reflection  on  their  judgment;  yet  Colonel 
House's  visit  has  great  historical  value,  for  the  experience 
afterward  convinced  him  that  Great  Britain  had  had  no 
part  in  bringing  on  the  European  war,  and  that  Germany 
was  solely  responsible.  It  certainly  should  have  put  the 
Wilson  Administration  right  on  this  all-important  point, 
when  the  great  storm  broke. 

The  most  vivid  recollection  which  the  British  statesmen 
whom  Colonel  House  met  retain  of  his  visit,  was  his  con- 
sternation at  the  spirit  that  had  confronted  him  every- 
where in  Germany.  The  four  men  most  interested- 
Sir  Edward  Grey,  Sir  William  Tyrrell,  Mr.  Page,  and 
Colonel  House — met  at  luncheon  in  the  American  Em- 
bassy a  few  days  after  President  Wilson's  emissary  had 
returned  from  Berlin.  Colonel  House  could  talk  of  little 
except  the  preparations  for  war  which  were  manifest  on 
every  hand. 

"I  feel  as  though  I  had  been  living  near  a  mighty 
electric  dynamo,"  Colonel  House  told  his  friends.  "The 
whole  of  Germany  is  charged  with  electricity.  Every- 
body's nerves  are  tense.  It  needs  only  a  spark  to  set  the 
whole  thing  off." 

The  "spark"  came  two  weeks  afterward  with  the  as- 
sassination of  the  Archduke  Ferdinand. 

"It  is  all  a  bad  business,"  Colonel  House  wrote  to 
Page  when  war  broke  out,  "and  just  think  how  near  we 
came  to  making  such  a  catastrophe  impossible!  If 
England  had  moved  a  little  faster  and  had  let  me  go 
back  to  Germany,  the  thing,  perhaps,  could  have  been 
done." 

To  which  Page  at  once  replied: 


J 


300       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

"No,  no,  no — no  power  on  earth  could  have  prevented 
it.  The  German  militarism,  which  is  the  crime  of  the 
last  fifty  years,  has  been  working  for  this  for  twenty -five 
years.  It  is  the  logical  result  of  their  spirit  and  enterprise 
and  doctrine.  It  had  to  come.  But,  of  course,  they 
chose  the  wrong  time  and  the  wrong  issue.  Militarism 
has  no  judgment.  Don't  let  your  conscience  be  worried. 
You  did  all  that  any  mortal  man  could  do.  But  nobody 
could  have  done  anything  effective. 

"We've  got  to  see  to  it  that  this  system  doesn't  grow 
up  again.  That's  all." 


CHAPTER  X 

THE    GRAND    SMASH 

IN  THE  latter  part  of  July  the  Pages  took  a  small  house 
at  Ockham,  in  Surrey,  and  here  they  spent  the  fateful 
week  that  preceded  the  outbreak  of  war.  The  Ambas- 
sador's emotions  on  this  event  are  reflected  in  a  memo- 
randum written  on  Sunday,  August  2nd — a  day  that  was 
full  of  negotiations,  ultimatums,  and  other  precursors  of 
the  approaching  struggle. 

Bachelor's  Farm,  Ockham,  Surrey. 
Sunday,  August  2,  1914. 

The  Grand  Smash  is  come.  Last  night  the  German 
Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg  handed  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment a  declaration  of  war.  To-day  the  German  Gov- 
ernment asked  the  United  States  to  take  its  diplomatic 
and  consular  business  in  Russia  in  hand.  Herrick,  our 
Ambassador  in  Paris,  has  already  taken  the  German  in- 
terests there. 

It  is  reported  in  London  to-day  that  the  Germans  have 
invaded  Luxemburg  and  France. 

Troops  were  marching  through  London  at  one  o'clock 
this  morning.  Colonel  Squier1  came  out  to  luncheon. 
He  sees  no  way  for  England  to  keep  out  of  it.  There  is 
no  way.  If  she  keep  out,  Germany  will  take  Belgium 
and  Holland,  France  would  be  betrayed,  and  England 
would  be  accused  of  forsaking  her  friends. 

JAt  this  time  American  military  attache. 

301 


302       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

People  came  to  the  Embassy  all  day  to-day  (Sunday), 
to  learn  how  they  can  get  to  the  United  States — a  rather 
hard  question  to  answer.  I  thought  several  times  of 
going  in,  but  Greene  and  Squier  said  there  was  no  need 
of  it.  People  merely  hoped  we  might  tell  them  what  we 
can't  tell  them. 

Returned  travellers  from  Paris  report  indescribable  con- 
fusion— -people  unable  to  obtain  beds  and  fighting  for 
seats  in  railway  carriages. 

It's  been  a  hard  day  here.  I  have  a  lot  (not  a 
big  lot  either)  of  routine  work  on  my  desk  which  I 
meant  to  do.  But  it  has  been  impossible  to  get  my 
mind  off  this  Great  Smash.  It  holds  one  in  spite  of 
one's  self.  I  revolve  it  and  revolve  it — of  course  getting 
nowhere. 

It  will  revive  our  shipping.  In  a  jiffy,  under  stress  of  a 
general  European  war,  the  United  States  Senate  passed  a 
bill  permitting  American  registry  to  ships  built  abroad. 
Thus  a  real  emergency  knocked  the  old  Protectionists 
out,  who  had  held  on  for  fifty  years!  Correspondingly 
the  political  parties  here  have  agreed  to  suspend  their 
Home  Rule  quarrel  till  this  war  is  ended.  (Artificial 
structures  fall  when  a  real  wind  blows.) 

The  United  States  is  the  only  great  Power  wholly  out 
of  it.  The  United  States,  most  likely,  therefore,  will  be 
able  to  play  a  helpful  and  historic  part  at  its  end.  It  will 
give  President  Wilson,  no  doubt,  a  great  opportunity. 
It  will  probably  help  us  politically  and  it  will  surely  help 
us  economically. 

The  possible  consequences  stagger  the  imagination. 
Germany  has  staked  everything  on  her  ability  to  win 
primacy.  England  and  France  (to  say  nothing  of 
Russia)  really  ought  to  give  her  a  drubbing.  If  they  do 
not,  this  side  of  the  world  will  henceforth  be  German.  If 


THE   GRAND   SMASH  303 

they  do  flog  Germany,  Germany  will  for  a  long  time  be  in 
discredit. 

I  walked  out  in  the  night  a  while  ago.  The  stars  are 
bright,  the  night  is  silent,  the  country  quiet — as  quiet 
as  peace  itself.  Millions  of  men  are  in  camp  and  on  war- 
ships. Will  they  all  have  to  fight  and  many  of  them  die — 
to  untangle  this  network  of  treaties  and  alliances  and  to  v 
blow  off  huge  debts  with  gunpowder  so  that  the  world 
may  start  again? 

A  hurried  picture  of  the  events  of  the  next  seven  days 
is  given  in  the  following  letter  to  the  President: 

To  the  President 

London,  Sunday,  August  9,  1914. 
DEAR  MR.  PRESIDENT  : 

God  save  us!  What  a  week  it  has  been!  Last  Sunday 
I  was  down  here  at  the  cottage  I  have  taken  for  the 
summer — an  hour  out  of  London — uneasy  because  of  the 
apparent  danger  and  of  what  Sir  Edward  Grey  had  told 
me.  During  the  day  people  began  to  go  to  the  Embassy, 
but  not  in  great  numbers — merely  to  ask  what  they 
should  do  in  case  of  war.  The  Secretary  whom  I  had 
left  in  charge  on  Sunday  telephoned  me  every  few  hours 
and  laughingly  told  funny  experiences  with  nervous  wo- 
men who  came  in  and  asked  absurd  questions.  Of  course, 
we  all  knew  the  grave  danger  that  war  might  come  but 
nobody  could  by  the  wildest  imagination  guess  at  what 
awaited  us.  On  Monday  I  was  at  the  Embassy  earlier 
than  I  think  I  had  ever  been  there  before  and  every 
member  of  the  staff  was  already  on  duty.  Before  break- 
fast time  the  place  was  filled — packed  like  sardines. 
This  was  two  days  before  war  was  declared.  There  was 


304       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

no  chance  to  talk  to  individuals,  such  was  the  jam.  I 
got  on  a  chair  and  explained  that  I  had  already  tele- 
graphed to  Washington — on  Saturday — suggesting  the 
sending  of  money  and  ships,  and  asking  them  to  be  pa- 
tient. I  made  a  speech  to  them  several  times  during  the 
day,  and  kept  the  Secretaries  doing  so  at  intervals.  More 
than  2,000  Americans  crowded  into  those  offices  (which 
are  not  large)  that  day.  We  were  kept  there  till  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  Embassy  has  not  been 
closed  since. 

Mr.  Kent  of  the  Bankers  Trust  Company  in  New  York 
volunteered  to  form  an  American  Citizens'  Relief  Com- 
mittee. He  and  other  men  of  experience  and  influence 
organized  themselves  at  the  Savoy  Hotel.  The  hotel 
gave  the  use  of  nearly  a  whole  floor.  They  organized 
themselves  quickly  and  admirably  and  got  information 
about  steamships  and  currency,  etc.  We  began  to  send 
callers  at  the  Embassy  to  this  Committee  for  such  inform- 
ation. The  banks  were  all  closed  for  four  days.  These 
men  got  money  enough — put  it  up  themselves  and  used 
their  English  banking  friends  for  help — to  relieve  all 
cases  of  actual  want  of  cash  that  came  to  them.  Tuesday 
the  crowd  at  the  Embassy  was  still  great  but  smaller. 
The  big  space  at  the  Savoy  Hotel  gave  them  room  to 
talk  to  one  another  and  to  get  relief  for  immediate  needs. 
By  that  time  I  had  accepted  the  volunteer  services  of 
five  or  six  men  to  help  us  explain  to  the  people — and 
they  have  all  worked  manfully  day  and  night.  We  now 
have  an  orderly  organization  at  four  places:  The  Em- 
bassy, the  Consul-General's  Office,  the  Savoy,  and  the 
American  Society  in  London,  and  everything  is  going  well. 
Those  two  first  days,  there  was,  of  course,  great  con- 
fusion. Crazy  men  and  weeping  women  were  imploring 
and  cursing  and  demanding — God  knows  it  was  bedlam 


THE   GRAND   SMASH  305 

turned  loose.  I  have  been  called  a  man  of  the  greatest 
genius  for  an  emergency  by  some,  by  others  a  damned 
fool,  by  others  every  epithet  between  these  extremes. 
Men  shook  English  banknotes  in  my  face  and  demanded 
United  States  money  and  swore  our  Government  and  its 
agents  ought  all  to  be  shot.  Women  expected  me  to 
hand  them  steamship  tickets  home.  When  some  found 
out  that  they  could  not  get  tickets  on  the  transports 
(which  they  assumed  would  sail  the  next  day)  they  ac- 
cused me  of  favouritism.  These  absurd  experiences  will 
give  you  a  hint  of  the  panic.  But  now  it  has  worked  out 
all  right,  thanks  to  the  Savoy  Committee  and  other 
helpers. 

Meantime,  of  course,  our  telegrams  and  mail  increased 
almost  as  much  as  our  callers.  I  have  filled  the  place 
with  stenographers,  I  have  got  the  Savoy  people  to  answer 
certain  classes  of  letters,  and  we  have  caught  up.  My 
own  time  and  the  time  of  two  of  the  secretaries  has  been 
almost  wholly  taken  with  governmental  problems;  hun- 
dreds of  questions  have  come  in  from  every  quarter  that 
were  never  asked  before.  But  even  with  them  we  have 
now  practically  caught  up — it  has  been  a  wonderful  week ! 

Then  the  Austrian  Ambassador  came  to  give  up  his  Em- 
bassy— to  have  me  take  over  his  business.  Every  detail  was 
arranged.  The  next  morning  I  called  on  him  to  assume 
charge  and  to  say  good-bye,  when  he  told  me  that  he  was 
not  yet  going !  That  was  a  stroke  of  genius  by  Sir  Edward 
Grey,  who  informed  him  that  Austria  had  not  given 
England  cause  for  war.  That  may  work  out,  or  it  may 
not.  Pray  Heaven  it  may!  Poor  Mensdorff,  the  Aus- 
trian Ambassador,  does  not  know  where  he  is.  He  is 
practically  shut  up  in  his  guarded  Embassy,  weeping  and 
waiting  the  decree  of  fate. 

Then  came  the  declaration  of  war,  most  dramatically. 


306       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Tuesday  night,  five  minutes  after  the  ultimatum  had  ex- 
pired, the  Admiralty  telegraphed  to  the  fleet  "Go."  In 
a  few  minutes  the  answer  came  back  "Off."  Soldiers 
began  to  march  through  the  city  going  to  the  railway 
stations.  An  indescribable  crowd  so  blocked  the  streets 
about  the  Admiralty,  the  War  Office,  and  the  Foreign 
Office,  that  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  I  had  to  drive 
in  my  car  by  other  streets  to  get  home. 

The  next  day  the  German  Embassy  was  turned  over 
to  me.  I  went  to  see  the  German  Ambassador  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  He  came  down  in  his  pajamas, 
a  crazy  man.  I  feared  he  might  literally  go  mad.  He 
is  of  the  anti-war  party  and  he  had  done  his  best  and 
utterly  failed.  This  interview  was  one  of  the  most 
pathetic  experiences  of  my  life.  The  poor  man  had  not 
slept  for  several  nights.  Then  came  the  crowds  of 
frightened  Germans,  afraid  that  they  would  be  arrested. 
They  besieged  the  German  Embassy  and  our  Embassy. 
I  put  one  of  our  naval  officers  in  the  German  Embassy, 
put  the  United  States  seal  on  the  door  to  protect  it,  and 
we  began  business  there,  too.  Our  naval  officer  has  moved 
in — sleeps  there.  He  has  an  assistant,  a  stenographer,  a 
messenger:  and  I  gave  him  the  German  automobile  and 
chauffeur  and  two  English  servants  that  were  left  there. 
He  has  the  job  well  in  hand  now,  under  my  and  Laugh- 
lin's  supervision.  But  this  has  brought  still  another  new 
lot  of  diplomatic  and  governmental  problems — a  lot  of 
them.  Three  enormous  German  banks  in  London  have, 
of  course,  been  closed.  Their  managers  pray  for  my  aid. 
Howling  women  come  and  say  their  innocent  German 
husbands  have  been  arrested  as  spies.  English,  Germans, 
Americans — everybody  has  daughters  and  wives  and 
invalid  grandmothers  alone  in  Germany.  In  God's 
name,  they  ask,  what  can  I  do  for  them?  Here  come 


THE   GRAND   SMASH  307 

stacks  of  letters  sent  under  the  impression  that  I  can 
send  them  to  Germany.  But  the  German  business  is 
already  well  in  hand  and  I  think  that  that  will  take  little 
of  my  own  time  and  will  give  little  trouble.  I  shall  send 
a  report  about  it  in  detail  to  the  Department  the  very 
first  day  I  can  find  time  to  write  it.  In  spite  of  the  effort 
of  the  English  Government  to  remain  at  peace  with 
Austria,  I  fear  I  shall  yet  have  the  Austrian  Embassy  too. 
But  I  can  attend  to  it. 

Now,  however,  comes  the  financial  job  of  wisely  using 
the  $300,000  which  I  shall  have  to-morrow.  I  am  using 
Mr.  Chandler  Anderson  as  counsel,  of  course.  I  have 
appointed  a  Committee — Skinner,  the  Consul-General, 
Lieut.-Commander  McCrary  of  our  Navy,  Kent  of  the 
Bankers  Trust  Company,  New  York,  and  one  other  man 
yet  to  be  chosen — to  advise,  after  investigation,  about 
every  proposed  expenditure.  Anderson  has  been  at  work 
all  day  to-day  drawing  up  proper  forms,  etc.,  to  fit  the 
Department's  very  excellent  instructions.  I  have  the 
feeling  that  more  of  that  money  may  be  wisely  spent  in 
helping  to  get  people  off  the  continent  (except  in  France, 
where  they  seem  admirably  to  be  managing  it,  under 
Herrick)  than  is  immediately  needed  in  England.  All 
this  merely  to  show  you  the  diversity  and  multiplicity 
of  the  job. 

I  am  having  a  card  catalogue,  each  containing  a  sort 
of  who's  who,  of  all  Americans  in  Europe  of  whom  we 
hear.  This  will  be  ready  by  the  time  the  Tennessee1 
comes.  Fifty  or  more  stranded  Americans — men  and 
women — are  doing  this  work  free. 

I  have  a  member  of  Congress2  in  the  general  reception 

JThe  American  Government,  on  the  outbreak  of  war,  sent  the  U.  S.  S.  Tennessee 
to  Europe,  with  large  supplies  of  gold  for  the  relief  of  stranded  Americans. 

late  Augustus  P.  Gardner,  of  Massachusetts. 


308       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

room  of  the  Embassy  answering  people's   questions — 
three  other  volunteers  as  well. 

We  had  a  world  of  confusion  for  two  or  three  days. 
But  all  this  work  is  now  well  organized  and  it  can  be 
continued  without  confusion  or  cross  purposes.  I  meet 
committees  and  lay  plans  and  read  and  write  telegrams 
from  the  time  I  wake  till  I  go  to  bed.  But,  since  it  is 
now  all  in  order,  it  is  easy.  Of  course  I  am  running  up 
the  expenses  of  the  Embassy — there  is  no  help  for  that; 
but  the  bill  will  be  really  exceedingly  small  because  of  the 
volunteer  work — for  awhile.  I  have  not  and  shall  not 
consider  the  expense  of  whatever  it  seems  absolutely 
necessary  to  do — of  other  things  I  shall  always  consider 
the  expense  most  critically.  Everybody  is  working  with 
everybody  else  in  the  finest  possible  spirit.  I  have  made 
out  a  sort  of  military  order  to  the  Embassy  staff,  detailing 
one  man  with  clerks  for  each  night  and  forbidding  the 
others  to  stay  there  till  midnight.  None  of  us  slept  more 
than  a  few  hours  last  week.  It  was  not  the  work  that 
kept  them  after  the  first  night  or  two,  but  the  sheer  ex- 
citement of  this  awful  cataclysm.  All  London  has  been 
awake  for  a  week.  Soldiers  are  marching  day  and  night; 
immense  throngs  block  the  streets  about  the  government 
offices.  But  they  are  all  very  orderly.  Every  day  Ger- 
mans are  arrested  on  suspicion;  and  several  of  them  have 
committed  suicide.  Yesterday  one  poor  American  wo- 
man yielded  to  the  excitement  and  cut  her  throat.  I 
find  it  hard  to  get  about  much.  People  stop  me  on  the 
street,  follow  me  to  luncheon,  grab  me  as  I  come  out  of 
any  committee  meeting — to  know  my  opinion  of  this 
or  that — how  can  they  get  home?  Will  such-and-such  a 
boat  fly  the  American  flag?  Why  did  I  take  the  German 
Embassy?  I  have  to  fight  my  way  about  and  rush  to  an 
automobile.  I  have  had  to  buy  me  a  second  one  to  keep 


No.  6  Grosvenor  Square,  the  American  Embassy  under  Mr.  Page 


Irwin  Laughlin,  Secretary  of  the  American  Embassy  at  London, 
1912-1917,  Counsellor  1916-1919 


THE   GRAND   SMASH  309 

up  the  racket.  Buy? — no — only  bargain  for  it,  for  I 
have  not  any  money.  But  everybody  is  considerate, 
and  that  makes  no  matter  for  the  moment.  This  little 
cottage  in  an  out-of-the-way  place,  twenty-five  miles 
from  London,  where  I  am  trying  to  write  and  sleep,  has 
been  found  by  people  to-day,  who  come  in  automobiles 
to  know  how  they  may  reach  their  sick  kinspeople  in 
Germany.  I  have  not  had  a  bath  for  three  days:  as 
soon  as  I  got  in  the  tub,  the  telephone  rang  an  "urgent" 
call! 

Upon  my  word,  if  one  could  forget  the  awful  tragedy, 
all  this  experience  would  be  worth  a  lifetime  of  common- 
place. One  surprise  follows  another  so  rapidly  that  one 
loses  all  sense  of  time :  it  seems  an  age  since  last  Sunday. 

I  shall  never  forget  Sir  Edward  Grey's  telling  me  of  the 
ultimatum — while  he  wept ;  nor  the  poor  German  Ambas- 
sador who  has  lost  in  his  high  game — almost  a  demented 
man ;  nor  the  King  as  he  declaimed  at  me  for  half-an-hour 
and  threw  up  his  hands  and  said,  "My  God,  Mr.  Page, 
what  else  could  we  do?  "  Nor  the  Austrian  Ambassador's 
wringing  his  hands  and  weeping  and  crying  out,  "My 
dear  Colleague,  my  dear  Colleague." 

Along  with  all  this  tragedy  come  two  reverend  Ameri- 
can peace  delegates  who  got  out  of  Germany  by  the 
skin  of  their  teeth  and  complain  that  they  lost  all  the 
clothes  they  had  except  what  they  had  on.  "Don't 
complain,"  said  I,  "but  thank  God  you  saved  your 
skins."  Everybody  has  forgotten  what  war  means — 
forgotten  that  folks  get  hurt.  But  they  are  coming 
around  to  it  now.  A  United  States  Senator  telegraphs 
me:  "Send  my  wife  and  daughter  home  on  the  first 
ship."  Ladies  and  gentlemen  filled  the  steerage  of  that 
ship — not  a  bunk  left;  and  his  wife  and  daughter  are 
found  three  days  later  sitting  in  a  swell  hotel  waiting  for 


310      THE   LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

me  to  bring  them  stateroom  tickets  on  a  silver  tray !  One 
of  my  young  fellows  in  the  Embassy  rushes  into  my  office 
saying  that  a  man  from  Boston,  with  letters  of  intro- 
duction from  Senators  and  Governors  and  Secretaries, 
et  al.,  was  demanding  tickets  of  admission  to  a  picture 
gallery,  and  a  secretary  to  escort  him  there. 

"What  shall  I  do  with  him?" 

"Put  his  proposal  to  a  vote  of  the  200  Americans  in 
the  room  and  see  them  draw  and  quarter  him." 

I  have  not  yet  heard  what  happened.  A  woman  writes 
me  four  pages  to  prove  how  dearly  she  loves  my  sister 
and  invites  me  to  her  hotel — five  miles  away — "please 
to  tell  her  about  the  sailing  of  the  steamships."  Six 
American  preachers  pass  a  resolution  unanimously  "urg- 
ing our  Ambassador  to  telegraph  our  beloved,  peace- 
loving  President  to  stop  this  awful  war";  and  they  come 
with  simple  solemnity  to  present  their  resolution.  Lord 
save  us,  what  a  world ! 

And  this  awful  tragedy  moves  on  to — what?  We 
do  not  know  what  is  really  happening,  so  strict  is  the 
censorship.  But  it  seems  inevitable  to  me  that  Germany 
will  be  beaten,  that  the  horrid  period  of  alliances  and 
armaments  will  not  come  again,  that  England  will  gain 
even  more  of  the  earth's  surface,  that  Russia  may  next 
play  the  menace;  that  all  Europe  (as  much  as  survives) 
will  be  bankrupt;  that  relatively  we  shall  be  immensely 
stronger  financially  and  politically — there  must  surely 
come  many  great  changes — very  many,  yet  undreamed 
of.  Be  ready;  for  you  will  be  called  on  to  compose  this 
huge  quarrel.  I  thank  Heaven  for  many  things — first, 
the  Atlantic  Ocean;  second,  that  you  refrained  from  war 
in  Mexico;  third,  that  we  kept  our  treaty — the  canal 
tolls  victory,  I  mean.  Now,  when  all  this  half  of  the 
world  will  suffer  the  unspeakable  brutalization  of  war, 


THE   GRAND   SMASH  311 

we  shall  preserve  our  moral  strength,  our  political  powers, 
and  our  ideals. 
God  save  us! 

W.  H.  P. 

Vivid  as  is  the  above  letter,  it  lacks  several  impressive 
details.  Probably  the  one  event  that  afterward  stood 
out  most  conspicuously  in  Page's  mind  was  his  interview 
with  Sir  Edward  Grey,  the  Foreign  Secretary.  Sir 
Edward  asked  the  American  Ambassador  to  call  Tuesday 
afternoon;  his  purpose  was  to  inform  him  that  Great 
Britain  had  sent  an  ultimatum  to  Germany.  By  this 
time  Page  and  the  Foreign  Secretary  had  established  not 
only  cordial  official  relations  but  a  warm  friendship. 
The  two  men  had  many  things  in  common;  they  had  the 
same  general  outlook  on  world  affairs,  the  same  ideas  of 
justice  and  fair  dealing,  the  same  belief  that  other  mo- 
tives than  greed  and  aggrandizement  should  control  the 
attitude  of  one  nation  to  another.  The  political  ten- 
dencies of  both  men  were  idealistic ;  both  placed  character 
above  everything  else  as  the  first  requisite  of  a  statesman ; 
both  hated  war,  and  looked  forward  to  the  time  when 
more  rational  methods  of  conducting  international  re- 
lations would  prevail.  Moreover,  their  purely  personal 
qualities  had  drawn  Sir  Edward  and  Page  closely  to- 
gether. A  common  love  of  nature  and  of  out-of-door 
life  had  made  them  akin ;  both  loved  trees,  birds,  flowers, 
and  hedgerows;  the  same  intellectual  diversions  and 
similar  tastes  in  reading  had  strengthened  the  tie.  "I 
could  never  mention  a  book  I  liked  that  Mr.  Page  had 
not  read  and  liked  too,"  Sir  Edward  Grey  once  remarked 
to  the  present  writer,  and  the  enthusiasm  that  both  men 
felt  for  Wordsworth's  poetry  in  itself  formed  a  strong  bond 
of  union.  The  part  that  the  American  Ambassador  had 


312       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

played  in  the  repeal  of  the  Panama  discrimination  had 
also  made  a  great  impression  upon  this  British  statesman 
f  — a  man  to  whom  honour  means  more  in  international 
dealings  than  any  other  consideration.  "Mr.  Page  is 
one  of  the  finest  illustrations  I  have  ever  known,"  Grey 
once  said,  "of  the  value__of  character  in  a  public^man." 
In  their  intercourse  for  the  past  year  the  two  men  had 
grown  accustomed  to  disregard  all  pretense  of  dip- 
lomatic technique;  their  discussions  had  been  straight- 
forward man-to-man  talks;  there  had  been  nothing  sug- 
gestive of  pose  or  finesse,  and  no  attempts  at  cleverness 
— merely  an  effort  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  things  and  to 
discover  a  common  meeting  ground.  The  Ambassador, 
moreover,  represented  a  nation  for  which  the  Foreign 
Secretary  had  always  entertained  the  highest  respect  and 
even  affection,  and  he  and  Page  could  find  no  happier 
common  meeting-ground  than  an  effort  to  bring  about 
the  closest  cooperation  between  the  two  countries.  Sir 
Edward,  far-seeing  statesman  that  he  was,  had  already 
appreciated,  even  amid  the  exciting  and  engrossing  ex- 
periences through  which  he  was  then  passing,  the  critical 
and  almost  determining  part  which  the  United  States  was 
destined  to  play  in  the  war,  and  he  had  now  sent  for  the 
American  Ambassador  because  he  believed  that  the  Presi- 
dent was  entitled  to  a  complete  explanation  of  the  mo- 
mentous decision  which  Great  Britain  had  just  made. 

The  meeting  took  place  at  three  o'clock  on  Tuesday 
afternoon,  August  4th — a  fateful  date  in  modern  history. 
The  time  represented  the  interval  which  elapsed  between 
the  transmission  of  the  British  ultimatum  to  Germany 
and  the  hour  set  for  the  German  reply.  The  place  was 
that  same  historic  room  in  the  Foreign  Office  where  so 
many  interviews  had  already  taken  place  and  where  so 
many  were  to  take  place  in  the  next  four  years.  As 


THE   GRAND   SMASH  313 

Page  came  in,  Sir  Edward,  a  tall  and  worn  and  rather 
pallid  figure,  was  standing  against  the  mantelpiece;  he 
greeted  the  Ambassador  with  a  grave  handshake  and  the 
two  men  sat  down.  Overwrought  the  Foreign  Secretary 
may  have  been,  after  the  racking  week  which  had  just 
passed,  but  there  was  nothing  flurried  or  excited  in  his 
manner;  his  whole  bearing  was  calm  and  dignified,  his 
speech  was  quiet  and  restrained,  he  uttered  not  one 
bitter  word  against  Germany,  but  his  measured  accents 
had  a  sureness,  a  conviction  of  the  justice  of  his  course, 
that  went  home  in  almost  deadly  fashion.  He  sat  in  a 
characteristic  pose,  his  elbows  resting  on  the  sides  of  his 
chair,  his  hands  folded  and  placed  beneath  his  chin, 
the  whole  body  leaning  forward  eagerly  and  his  eyes 
searching  those  of  his  American  friend.  The  British 
Foreign  Secretary  was  a  handsome  and  an  inspiring 
figure.  He  was  a  man  of  large,  but  of  well  knit,  robust, 
and  slender  frame,  wiry  and  even  athletic;  he  had  a  large 
head,  surmounted  with  dark  brown  hair,  slightly  touched 
with  gray;  a  finely  cut,  somewhat  rugged  and  bronzed 
face,  suggestive  of  that  out-of-door  life  in  which  he  had 
always  found  his  greatest  pleasure;  light  blue  eyes  that 
shone  with  straightforwardness  and  that  on  this  occasion 
were  somewhat  pensive  with  anxiety;  thin,  ascetic  lips 
that  could  smile  in  the  most  confidential  manner  or  close 
tightly  with  grimness  and  fixed  purpose.  He  was  a  man 
who  was  at  the  same  time  shy  and  determined,  elusive 
and  definite,  but  if  there  was  one  note  in  his  bearing  that 
predominated  all  others,  it  was  a  solemn  and  quiet  sin- 
cerity. He  seemed  utterly  without  guile  and  mag- 
nificently simple. 

Sir  Edward  at  once  referred  to  the  German  invasion  of 
Belgium. 

"The  neutrality  of  Belgium,"  he  said,  and  there  was 


1 


314      THE   LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

the  touch  of  finality  in  his  voice,  "is  assured  by  treaty. 
Germany  is  a  signatory  power  to  that  treaty.  It  is  upon 
such  solemn  compacts  as  this  that  civilization  rests.  If 
we  give  them  up,  or  permit  them  to  be  violated,  what 
becomes  of  civilization?  Ordered  society  differs  from 
mere  force  only  by  such  solemn  agreements  or  compacts. 
But  Germany  has  violated  the  neutrality  of  Belgium. 
That  means  bad  faith.  It  means  also  the  end  of  Bel- 
gium's independence.  And  it  will  not  end  with  Belgium. 
Next  will  come  Holland,  and,  after  Holland,  Denmark. 
This  very  morning  the  Swedish  Minister  informed  me  that 
Germany  had  made  overtures  to  Sweden  to  come  in  on 
Germany's  side.  The  whole  plan  is  thus  clear.  This  one 
great  military  power  means  to  annex  Belgium,  Holland, 
and  the  Scandinavian  states  and  to  subjugate  France." 

Sir  Edward  energetically  rose;  he  again  stood  near  the 
mantelpiece,  his  figure  straightened,  his  eyes  were  fairly 
flashing  —  it  was  a  picture,  Page  once  told  me,  that  was 
afterward  indelibly  fixed  in  his  mind. 

"England  would  be  forever  contemptible,"  Sir  Edward 
said,  "if  it  should  sit  by  and  see  this  treaty  violated.  Its 
position  would  be  gone  if  Germany  were  thus  permitted  to 
dominate  Europe.  I  have  therefore  asked  you  to  come 
to  tell  you  that  this  morning  we  sent  an  ultimatum  to 
Germany.  We  have  told  Germany  that,  if  this  assault 
on  Belgium's  neutrality  is  not  reversed,  England  will 
declare  war." 

"Do  you  expect  Germany  to  accept  it?"  asked  the 
Ambassador. 

Sir  Edward  shook  his  head. 

"No.     Of  course  everybody  knows  that  there  will  be 


war." 


There  was  a  moment's  pause  and  then  the  Foreign 
Secretary  spoke  again : 


THE   GRAND   SMASH  315 

"Yet  we  must  remember  that  there  are  two  Gennanys. 
There  is  the  Germany  of  men  like  ourselves — of  men  like 
Lichnowsky  and  Jagow.  Then  there  is  the  Germany  of  men 
of  the  war  party.  The  war  party  has  got  the  upper  hand. ' ' 

At  this  point  Sir  Edward's  eyes  filled  with  tears. 

"Thus  the  efforts  of  a  lifetime  go  for  nothing.  I  feel 
like  a  man  who  has  wasted  his  life." 

"This  scene  was  most  affecting,"  Page  said  afterward. 
"Sir  Edward  not  only  realized  what  the  whole  thing 
meant,  but  he  showed  that  he  realized  the  awful  responsi- 
bility for  it." 

Sir  Edward  then  asked  the  Ambassador  to  explain 
the  situation  to  President  Wilson;  he  expressed  the  hope 
that  the  United  States  would  take  an  attitude  of  neutral- 
ity and  that  Great  Britain  might  look  for  "the  courtesies 
of  neutrality"  from  this  country.  Page  tried  to  tell  him 
of  the  sincere  pain  that  such  a  war  would  cause  the  Presi- 
dent and  the  American  people. 

"I  came  away,"  the  Ambassador  afterward  said,  "with 
a  sort  of  stunned  sense  of  the  impending  ruin  of  half  the 
world."1 

The  significant  fact  in  this  interview  is  that  the  British 
Foreign  Secretary  justified  the  attitude  of  his  country 
exclusively  on  the  ground  of  the  violation  of  a  treaty. 
This  is  something  that  is  not  yet  completely  understood 
in  the  United  States.  The  participation  of  Great  Britain 
in  this  great  continental  struggle  is  usually  regarded  as 
having  been  inevitable,  irrespective  of  the  German  in- 
vasion of  Belgium;  yet  the  fact  is  that,  had  Germany 
not  invaded  Belgium,  Great  Britain  would  not  have  de- 
clared war,  at  least  at  this  critical  time.  Sir  Edward 

lfThe  materials  on  which  this  account  is  based  are  a  memorandum  of  the  inter- 
view made  by  Sir  Edward  Grey,  now  in  the  archives  of  the  British  Foreign  Office, 
a  similar  memorandum  made  by  Page,  and  a  detailed  description  given  verbally  by 
Page  to  the  writer. 


316       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

came  to  Page  after  a  week's  experience  with  a  wavering 
cabinet.  Upon  the  general  question  of  Britain's  partici- 
pation in  a  European  war  the  Asquith  Ministry  had  been 
by  no  means  unanimous.  Probably  Mr.  Asquith  him- 
self and  Mr.  Lloyd  George  would  have  voted  against 
taking  such  a  step.  It  is  quite  unlikely  that  the  cabinet 
could  have  carried  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons 
on  this  issue.  But  the  violation  of  the  Belgian  treaty 
changed  the  situation  in  a  twinkling.  The  House  of 
Commons  at  once  took  its  stand  in  favour  of  intervention. 
All  members  of  the  cabinet,  excepting  John  Morley  and 
John  Burns,  who  resigned,  immediately  aligned  themselves 
on  the  side  of  war.  In  the  minds  of  British  statesmen 
the  violation  of  this  treaty  gave  Britain  no  choice.  Ger- 
many thus  forced  Great  Britain  into  the  war,  just  as,  two 
and  a  half  years  afterward,  the  Prussian  war  lords  com- 
pelled the  United  States  to  take  up  arms.  Sir  Edward 
Grey's  interview  with  the  American  Ambassador  thus 
had  great  historic  importance,  for  it  makes  this  point  clear. 
The  two  men  had  recently  had  many  discussions  on  an- 
other subject  in  which  the  violation  of  a  treaty  was  the 
great  consideration — that  of  Panama  tolls — and  there 
was  a  certain  appropriateness  in  this  explanation  of  the 
British  Foreign  Secretary  that  precisely  the  same  point 
had  determined  Great  Britain's  participation  in  the  great- 
est struggle  that  has  ever  devastated  Europe. 

Inevitably  the  question  of  American  mediation  had 
come  to  the  surface  in  this  trying  time.  Several  days 
before  Page's  interview  with  Grey,  the  American  Ambas- 
sador, acting  in  response  to  a  cablegram  from  Washing- 
ton, had  asked  if  the  good  offices  of  the  United  States 
could  be  used  in  any  way.  "Sir  Edward  is  very  ap- 
preciative of  our  mood  and  willingness,"  Page  wrote  in 
reference  to  this  visit.  "But  they  don't  want  peace  on 


THE   GRAND   SMASH  317 

the  continent — the  ruling  classes  do  not.  But  they  will 
want  it  presently  and  then  our  opportunity  will  come. 
Ours  is  the  only  great  government  in  the  world  that  is 
not  in  some  way  entangled.  Of  course  I'll  keep  in  daily 
touch  with  Sir  Edward  and  with  everybody  who  can  and 
will  keep  me  informed." 

This  was  written  about  July  27th ;  at  that  time  Austria 
had  sent  her  ultimatum  to  Serbia  but  there  was  no  cer- 
tainty that  Europe  would  become  involved  in  war.  A 
demand  for  American  mediation  soon  became  widespread 
in  the  United  States;  the  Senate  passed  a  resolution 
requesting  the  President  to  proffer  his  good  offices  to 
that  end.  On  this  subject  the  following  communications 
were  exchanged  between  President  Wilson  and  his  chief 
adviser,  then  sojourning  at  his  summer  home  in  Massa- 
chusetts. Like  Mr.  Tumulty,  the  President's  Secretary, 
Colonel  House  usually  addressed  the  President  in  terms 
reminiscent  of  the  days  when  Mr.  Wilson  was  Governor 
of  New  Jersey.  Especially  interesting  also  are  Colonel 
House's  references  to  his  own  trip  to  Berlin  and  the  joint 
efforts  made  by  the  President  and  himself  in  the  preceding 
June  to  forestall  the  war  which  had  now  broken  out. 

Edward  M.  House  to  the  President 

Pride's  Crossing  (Mass.), 

August  3,  1914.     [Monday.] 
THE  PRESIDENT, 

The  White  House,  Washington,  D.  C. 
DEAR  GOVERNOR: 

Our  people  are  deeply  shocked  at  the  enormity  of  this 
general  European  war,  and  I  see  here  and  there  regret 
that  you  did  not  use  your  good  offices  in  behalf  of  peace. 

If  this  grows  into  criticism  so  as  to  become  noticeable 
I  believe  everyone  would  be  pleased  and  proud  that  you 


318       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

had  anticipated  this  world-wide  horror  and  had  done  all 
that  was  humanly  possible  to  avert  it. 

The  more  terrible  the  war  becomes,  the  greater  credit 
it  will  be  that  you  saw  the  trend  of  events  long  before 
it  was  seen  by  other  statesmen  of  the  world. 

Your  very  faithful, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

P.  S.  The  question  might  be  asked  why  negotiations 
were  only  with  Germany  and  England  and  not  with 
France  and  Russia.  This,  of  course,  was  because  it 
was  thought  that  Germany  would  act  for  the  Triple 
Alliance  and  England  for  the  Triple  Entente.1 

The  President  to  Edward  M.  House 

The  White  House, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

August  4th,  1914.     [Tuesday.] 
EDWARD  M.  HOUSE, 

Pride's  Crossing,  Mass. 

Letter  of  third  received.  Do  you  think  I  could  and 
should  act  now  and  if  so  how? 

WOODROW  WILSON. 

Edward  M.  House  to  the  President 
[Telegram] 

Pride's  Crossing,  Mass. 
August  5th,  1914.     [Wednesday.] 
THE  PRESIDENT, 

The  White  House,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Olney2  and  I  agree  that  in  response  to  the  Senate  reso- 


House,  of  course,  is  again  referring  to  his  experience  in  Berlin  and 
London,  described  in  the  preceding  chapter. 

'Richard  Olney,  Secretary  of  State  in  the  Cabinet  of  President  Cleveland,  -who 
was  a  neighbour  of  Colonel  House  at  his  summer  home,  and  with  whom  the  latter 
apparently  consulted. 


THE  GRAND   SMASH  319 

lution  it  would  be  unwise  to  tender  your  good  offices  at 
this  time.  We  believe  it  would  lessen  your  influence 
when  the  proper  moment  arrives.  He  thinks  it  advisable 
that  you  make  a  direct  or  indirect  statement  to  the  effect 
that  you  have  done  what  was  humanly  possible  to  com- 
pose the  situation  before  this  crisis  had  been  reached. 
He  thinks  this  would  satisfy  the  Senate  and  the  public 
in  view  of  your  disinclination  to  act  now  upon  the  Senate 
resolution.  The  story  might  be  told  to  the  correspond- 
ents at  Washington  and  they  might  use  the  expression 
"we  have  it  from  high  authority." 

He  agrees  to  my  suggestion  that  nothing  further  should 
be  done  now  than  to  instruct  our  different  ambassadors 
to  inform  the  respective  governments  to  whom  they  are 
accredited,  that  you  stand  ready  to  tender  your  good 
offices  whenever  such  an  offer  is  desired. 

Olney  agrees  with  me  that  the  shipping  bill1  is  full  of 
lurking  dangers. 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

For  some  reason,  however,  the  suggested  statement  was 
not  made.  The  fact  that  Colonel  House  had  visited 
London,  Paris,  and  Berlin  six  weeks  before  the  outbreak 
of  war,  in  an  effort  to  bring  about  a  plan  for  disarmament, 
was  not  permitted  to  reach  the  public  ear.  Probably  the 
real  reason  why  this  fact  was  concealed  was  that  its  pub- 
lication at  that  time  would  have  reflected  so  seriously 
upon  Germany  that  it  would  have  been  regarded  as 
"un-neutral."  Colonel  House,  as  already  described, 
had  found  Germany  in  a  most  belligerent  frame  of  mind, 
its  army  "ready,"  to  use  the  Kaiser's  own  word,  for  an 
immediate  spring  at  France;  on  the  other  hand  he  had 

irThis  is  the  bill  passed  soon  after  the  outbreak  of  war  admitting  foreign  built 
ships  to  American  registry.  Subsequent  events  showed  that  it  was  "full  of  lurk- 
ing dangers." 


J 


320       THE    LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

found  Great  Britain  in  a  most  pacific  frame  of  mind,  en- 
tirely unsuspicious  of  Germany,  and  confident  that  the 
European  situation  was  daily  improving.  It  is  interesting 
now  to  speculate  on  the  public  sensation  lhat  would  have 
been  caused  had  Colonel  House's  account  of  his  visit  to 
Berlin  been  published  at  that  exciting  time. 

Page's  telegrams  and  letters  show  that  any  suggestion 
at  mediation  would  have  been  a  waste  of  effort.  The 
President  seriously  forebore,  but  the  desire  to  mediate 
was  constantly  in  his  mind  for  the  next  few  months,  and 
he  now  interested  himself  in  laying  the  foundations  of 
future  action.  Page  was  instructed  to  ask  for  an  au- 
dience with  King  George  and  to  present  the  following 
document: 

From  the  President  of  the  United  States 
to  His  Majesty  the  King 

SIR: 

As  official  head  of  one  of  the  Powers  signatory  to  the 
Hague  Convention,  I  feel  it  to  be  my  privilege  and  my 
duty  under  Article  3  of  that  Convention  to  say  to  your 
Majesty,  in  a  spirit  of  most  earnest  friendship,  that  I 
should  welcome  an  opportunity  to  act  in  the  interest  of 
European  peace  either  now  or  at  any  time  that  might 
be  thought  more  suitable  as  an  occasion,  to  serve  your 
Majesty  and  all  concerned  in  a  way  that  would  afford 
me  lasting  cause  for  gratitude  and  happiness. 

WOODROW  WILSON. 

This,  of  course,  was  not  mediation,  but  a  mere  ex- 
pression of  the  President's  willingness  to  mediate  at  any 
time  that  such  a  tender  from  him,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
warring  Powers,  would  serve  the  cause  of  peace.  Identi- 
cally the  same  message  was  sent  to  the  American  Am- 


THE   GRAND    SMASH  321 

bassadors  at  the  capitals  of  all  the  belligerent  Powers  for 
presentation  to  the  heads  of  state.  Page's  letter  of 
August  9th,  printed  above,  refers  to  the  earnestness  and 
cordiality  with  which  King  George  received  him  and  to 
the  freedom  with  which  His  Majesty  discussed  the  situa- 
tion. 

In  this  exciting  week  Page  was  thrown  into  intimate 
contact  with  the  two  most  pathetic  figures  in  the  dip- 
lomatic circle  of  London — the  Austrian  and  the  German 
Ambassadors.  To  both  of  these  men  the  war  was  more 
than  a  great  personal  sorrow:  it  was  a  tragedy.  Mens- 
dorff,  the  Austrian  Ambassador,  had  long  enjoyed  an 
intimacy  with  the  British  royal  family.  Indeed  he  was  a 
distant  relative  of  King  George,  for  he  was  a  member  of 
the  family  of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,  a  fact  which  was  em- 
phasized by  his  physical  resemblance  to  Prince  Albert, 
the  consort  of  Queen  Victoria.  Mensdorff  was  not  a 
robust  man,  physically  or  mentally,  and  he  showed  his 
consternation  at  the  impending  war  in  most  unrestrained 
and  even  unmanly  fashion.  As  his  government  directed 
him  to  turn  the  Austrian  Embassy  over  to  the  American 
Ambassador,  it  was  necessary  for  Page  to  call  and  arrange 
the  details.  The  interview,  as  Page's  letter  indicates, 
was  little  less  than  a  paroxysm  of  grief  on  the  Austrian's 
part.  He  denounced  Germany  and  the  Kaiser;  he  pa- 
raded up  and  down  the  room  wringing  his  hands ;  he  could 
be  pacified  only  by  suggestions  from  the  American  that 
perhaps  something  might  happen  to  keep  Austria  out  of 
the  war.  The  whole  atmosphere  of  the  Austrian  Em- 
bassy radiated  this  same  feeling.  "Austria  has  no  quar- 
rel with  England,"  remarked  one  of  Mensdorff' s  assistants 
to  one  of  the  ladies  of  the  American  Embassy;  and  this 
sentiment  was  the  general  one  in  Austrian  diplomatic 
circles.  The  disinclination  of  both  Great  Britain  and 


322       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

Austria  to  war  was  so  great  that,  as  Page  relates,  for 
several  days  there  was  no  official  declaration, 
y  Even  more  tragical  than  the  fate  of  the  Austrian  Am- 
bassador was  that  of  his  colleague,  the  representative  of 
the  German  Emperor.  It  was  more  tragical  because 
Prince  Lichnowsky  represented  the  power  that  was  pri- 
marily responsible,  and  because  he  had  himself  been  an 
unwilling  tool  in  bringing  on  the  cataclysm.  It  was 
more  profound  because  Lichnowsky  was  a  man  of  deeper 
feeling  and  greater  moral  purpose  than  his  Austrian  col- 
league, and  because  for  two  years  he  had  been  devoting 
his  strongest  energies  to  preventing  the  very  calamity 
which  had  now  become  a  fact.  As  the  war  went  on 
Lichnowsky  gradually  emerged  as  one  of  its  finest  figures ; 
the  pamphlet  which  he  wrote,  at  a  time  when  Germany's 
military  fortunes  were  still  high,  boldly  placing  the  re- 
sponsibility upon  his  own  country  and  his  own  Kaiser, 
I  was  one  of  the  bravest  acts  which  history  records. 
Through  all  his  brief  Ambassadorship  Lichnowsky  had 
shown  these  same  friendly  traits.  The  mere  fact  that  he 
had  been  selected  as  Ambassador  at  this  time  was  little 
less  than  a  personal  calamity.  His  appointment  gives  a 
fair  measure  of  the  depths  of  duplicity  to  which  the 
Prussian  system  could  descend.  For  more  than  four- 
teen years  Lichnowsky  had  led  the  quiet  life  of  a  Polish 
country  gentleman;  he  had  never  enjoyed  the  favour  of 
the  Kaiser ;  in  his  own  mind  and  in  that  of  his  friends  his 
career  had  long  since  been  finished;  yet  from  this  retire- 
ment he  had  been  suddenly  called  upon  to  represent  the 
Fatherland  at  the  greatest  of  European  capitals.  The 
motive  for  this  elevation,  which  was  unfathomable  then, 
is  evident  enough  now.  Prince  Lichnowsky  was  known 
to  be  an  Anglophile;  everything  English — English  litera- 
ture, English  country  life,  English  public  men — had  fcr 


THE   GRAND   SMASH  323 

him  an  irresistible  charm;  and  his  greatest  ambition  as 
a  diplomat  had  been  to  maintain  the  most  cordial  re- 
lations between  his  own  country  and  Great  Britain.  This 
was  precisely  the  type  of  Ambassador  that  fitted  into  the 
Imperial  purpose  at  that  crisis.  Germany  was  preparing 
energetically  but  quietly  for  war;  it  was  highly  essential 
that  its  most  formidable  potential  foe,  Great  Britain, 
should  be  deceived  as  to  the  Imperial  plans  and  lulled  into 
a  sense  of  security.  The  diabolical  character  of  Prince 
Lichnowsky's  selection  for  this  purpose  was  that,  though 
his  mission  was  one  of  deception,  he  was  not  himself  a 
party  to  it  and  did  not  realize  until  it  was  too  late  that  he 
had  been  used  merely  as  a  tool.  Prince  Lichnowsky  was 
not  called  upon  to  assume  a  mask ;  all  that  was  necessary 
was  that  he  should  simply  be  himself.  And  he  acquitted 
himself  with  great  success.  He  soon  became  a  favourite 
in  London  society;  the  Foreign  Office  found  him  always 
ready  to  cooperate  in  any  plan  that  tended  to  improve 
relations  between  the  two  countries.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that,  when  Colonel  House  returned  to  London 
from  his  interview  with  the  Kaiser  in  June,  1914,  he 
found  British  statesmen  incredulous  about  any  trouble 
with  Germany.  This  attitude  was  the  consequence  of 
Lichnowsky's  work.  The  fact  is  that  relations  between 
the  two  countries  had  not  been  so  harmonious  in  twenty 
years.  All  causes  of  possible  friction  had  been  adjusted. 
The  treaty  regulating  the  future  of  the  Bagdad  Railroad, 
the  only  problem  that  clouded  the  future,  had  been 
initialled  by  both  the  British  and  the  German  Foreign 
Offices  and  was  about  to  be  signed  at  the  moment  when 
the  ultimatums  began  to  fly  through  the  air.  Prince 
Lichnowsky  was  thus  entitled  to  look  upon  his  ambassa- 
dorship as  one  of  the  most  successful  in  modern  history, 
for  it  had  removed  all  possible  cause  of  war. 


324      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

And  then  suddenly  came  the  stunning  blow.  For 
several  days  Lichnowsky's  behaviour  was  that  of  an  ir- 
responsible person.  Those  who  came  into  contact  with 
him  found  his  mind  wandering  and  incoherent.  Page 
describes  the  German  Ambassador  as  coming  down  and 
receiving  him  in  his  pajamas;  he  was  not  the  only  one 
who  had  that  experience,  for  members  of  the  British 
Foreign  Office  transacted  business  with  this  most  punc- 
tilious of  diplomats  in  a  similar  condition  of  personal 
disarray.  And  the  dishabille  extended  to  his  mental 
operations  as  well. 

But  Lichnowsky's  and  Mensdorff's  behaviour  merely 
portrayed  the  general  atmosphere  that  prevailed  in 
London  during  that  week.  This  atmosphere  was  simply 
hysterical.  Among  ah1  the  intimate  participants,  how- 
ever, there  was  one  man  who  kept  his  poise  and  who 
saw  things  clearly.  That  was  the  American  Ambas- 
sador. It  was  certainly  a  strange  trick  which  fortune 
had  played  upon  Page.  He  had  come  to  London  with 
no  experience  in  diplomacy.  Though  the  possibility  of 
such  an  outbreak  as  this  war  had  been  in  every  man's 
consciousness  for  a  generation,  it  had  always  been  as 
something  certain  yet  remote;  most  men  thought  of  it 
as  most  men  think  of  death — as  a  fatality  which  is  in- 
evitable, but  which  is  so  distant  that  it  never  becomes  a 
reality.  Thus  Page,  when  he  arrived  in  London,  did  not 
have  the  faintest  idea  of  the  experience  that  awaited 
him.  Most  people  would  have  thought  that  his  quiet  and 
studious  and  unworldly  life  had  hardly  prepared  him  to 
become  the  representative  of  the  most  powerful  neutral 
power  at  the  world's  capital  during  the  greatest  crisis  of 
modern  history.  To  what  an  extent  that  impression  was 
justified  the  happenings  of  the  next  four  years  will  dis- 
close; it  is  enough  to  point  out  in  this  place  that  in  one 


THE   GRAND   SMASH  325 

respect  at  least  the  war  found  the  American  Ambassador 
well  prepared.  From  the  instant  hostilities  began  his 
mind  seized  the  significance  of  it  all.  "Mr.  Page  had  one 
fine  qualification  for  his  post,"  a  great  British  statesman 
once  remarked  to  the  present  writer.  "From  the  be- 
ginning he  saw  that  there  was  a  right  and  a  wrong  to  the 
matter.  He  did  not  believe  that  Great  Britain  and  Ger- 
many were  equally  to  blame.  He  believed  that  Great 
Britain  was  right  and  that  Germany  was  wrong.  I  re- 
gard it  as  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  of  modern  times 
that  the  United  States  had  an  ambassador  in  London  in 
August,  1914,  who  had  grasped  this  overwhelming  fact. 
It  seems  almost  like  a  dispensation  of  Providence." 

It  is  important  to  insist  on  this  point  now,  for  it  ex- 
plains Page's  entire  course  as  Ambassador.  The  con- 
fidential telegram  which  Page  sent  directly  to  President 
Wilson  in  early  September,  1914,  furnishes  the  stand- 
point from  which  his  career  as  war  Ambassador  can  be 
understood: 

Confidential  to  the  President 

September  11,  3  A.  M. 
No.  645. 

Accounts  of  atrocities  are  so  inevitably  a  part  of  every 
war  that  for  some  time  I  did  not  believe  the  unbelievable 
reports  that  were  sent  from  Europe,  and  there  are  many 
that  I  find  incredible  even  now.  But  American  and  other 
neutral  observers  who  have  seen  these  things  in  France 
and  especially  in  Belgium  now  convince  me  that  the 
Germans  have  perpetrated  some  of  the  most  barbarous 
deeds  in  history.  Apparently  credible  persons  relate 
such  things  without  end. 

Those  who  have  violated  the  Belgian  treaty,  those  who 
have  sown  torpedoes  in  the  open  sea,  those  who  have 


326       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

dropped  bombs  on  Antwerp  and  Paris  indiscriminately 
with  the  idea  of  killing  whom  they  may  strike,  have  taken 
to  heart  Bernhardi's  doctrine  that  war  is  a  glorious  oc- 
cupation. Can  any  one  longer  disbelieve  the  completely 
barbarous  behaviour  of  the  Prussians? 

PAGE. 


THE  months  following  the  outbreak  of  the  war  were 
busy  ones  for  the  American  Embassy  in  London. 
The  Embassies  of  all  the  great  Powers  with  which  Great 
Britain  was  contending  were  handed  over  to  Page,  and 
the  citizens  of  these  countries — Germany,  Austria,  Tur- 
key— who  found  themselves  stranded  in  England,  were 
practically  made  his  wards.  It  is  a  constant  astonish- 
ment to  his  biographer  that,  during  all  the  labour  and 
distractions  of  this  period,  Page  should  have  found  time 
to  write  long  letters  describing  the  disturbing  scene. 
There  are  scores  of  them,  all  penned  in  the  beautiful 
copper-plate  handwriting  that  shows  no  signs  of  ex- 
citement or  weariness,  but  is  in  itself  an  evidence  of 
mental  poise  and  of  the  sure  grip  which  Page  had  upon 
the  evolving  drama.  From  the  many  sent  in  these 
autumn  and  early  winter  months  the  following  selections 
are  made: 

To  Edward  M.  House 

September  22nd,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  HOUSE: 

When  the  day  of  settlement  comes,  the  settlement 
must  make  sure  that  the  day  of  militarism  is  done  and 
can  come  no  more.  If  sheer  brute  force  is  to  rule  the  ^ 
world,  it  will  not  be  worth  living  in.  If  German  bureau- 
cratic brute  force  could  conquer  Europe,  presently  it 
would  try  to  conquer  the  United  States;  and  we  should 

327 


328       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.   PAGE 

all  go  back  to  the  era  of  war  as  man's  chief  industry  and 
back  to  the  domination  of  kings  by  divine  right.  It 
seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  the  Hohenzollern  idea  must 
perish — be  utterly  strangled  in  the  making  of  peace. 

Just  how  to  do  this,  it  is  not  yet  easy  to  say.  If  the 
German  defeat  be  emphatic  enough  and  dramatic  enough, 
the  question  may  answer  itself — how's  the  best  way  to 
be  rid  of  the  danger  of  the  recurrence  of  a  military  bureau- 
cracy? But  in  any  event,  this  thing  must  be  killed  for- 
ever— somehow.  I  think  that  a  firm  insistence  on  this 
is  the  main  task  that  mediation  will  bring.  The  rest  will 
be  corollaries  of  this. 

The  danger,  of  course,  as  all  the  world  is  beginning  to 
fear,  is  that  the  Kaiser,  after  a  local  victory — especially 
if  he  should  yet  take  Paris — will  propose  peace,  saying 
that  he  dreads  the  very  sight  of  blood — propose  peace 
in  time,  as  he  will  hope,  to  save  his  throne,  his  dynasty, 
his  system.  That  will  be  a  dangerous  day.  The  horror 
of  war  will  have  a  tendency  to  make  many  persons  in  the 
countries  of  the  Allies  accept  it.  All  the  peace  folk  in 
the  world  will  say  "Accept  it!"  But  if  he  and  his 
throne  and  his  dynasty  and  his  system  be  saved,  in 
twenty-five  years  the  whole  job  must  be  done  over  again. 

We  are  settling  down  to  a  routine  of  double  work  and 
to  an  oppression  of  gloom.  Dead  men,  dead  men,  maimed 
men,  the  dull  gray  dread  of  what  may  happen  next,  the 
impossibility  of  changing  the  subject,  the  monotony  of 
gloom,  the  consequent  dimness  of  ideals,  the  overworking 
of  the  emotions  and  the  heavy  bondage  of  thought — the 
days  go  swiftly:  that's  one  blessing. 

The  diplomatic  work  proper  brings  fewer  difficulties 
than  you  would  guess.  New  subjects  and  new  duties 
come  with  great  rapidity,  but  they  soon  fall  into  formulas 
— at  least  into  classes.  We  shall  have  no  sharp  crises  nor 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE   STRESS   OF  WAR  329 

grave  difficulties  so  long  as  our  Government  and  this 
Government  keep  their  more  than  friendly  relations.  I 
see  Sir  Edward  Grey  almost  every  day.  We  talk  of  many 
things — all  phases  of  one  vast  wreck ;  and  all  the  clear-cut 
points  that  come  up  I  report  by  telegraph.  To-day  the 
talk  was  of  American  cargoes  in  British  ships  and  the 
machinery  they  have  set  up  here  for  fair  settlement. 
Then  of  Americans  applying  for  enlistment  in  Canadian 
regiments.  "If  sheer  brute  force  conquer  Europe,"  said 
he,  "the  United  States  will  be  the  only  country  where  life 
will  be  worth  living;  and  in  time  you  will  have  to  fight 
against  it,  too,  if  it  conquer  Europe."  He  spoke  of  the 
letter  he  had  just  received  from  the  President,  and  he 
asked  me  many  sympathetic  questions  about  you  also 
and  about  your  health.  I  ventured  to  express  some  solici- 
tude for  him. 

"How  much  do  you  get  out  now?" 

"Only  for  an  automobile  drive  Sunday  afternoon." 
/  This  from  a  man  who  is  never  happy  away  from  nature 
and  is  at  home  only  in  the  woods  and  along  the  streams. 
He  looks  worn. 

I  hear  nothing  but  satisfaction  with  our  neutrality 
tight-rope  walk.  I  think  we  are  keeping  it  here,  by  close 
attention  to  our  work  and  by  silence. 

Our  volunteer  and  temporary  aids  are  doing  well — 
especially  the  army  and  navy  officers.  We  now  occupy 
three  work-places:  (1)  the  over-crowded  embassy;  (2) 
a  suite  of  offices  around  the  corner  where  the  ever- 
lengthening  list  of  inquiries  for  persons  is  handled  and 
where  an  army  officer  pays  money  to  persons  whose  friends 
have  deposited  it  for  them  with  the  Government  in  Wash- 
ington— just  now  at  the  rate  of  about  $15,000  a  day;  and 
(3)  two  great  rooms  at  the  Savoy  Hotel,  where  the  admir- 
able relief  committee  (which  meets  all  trains  that  bring 


330      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS  OF  WALTER   H.   PAGE 

people  from  the  continent)  gives  aid  to  the  needy  and 
helps  people  to  get  tickets  home.  They  have  this  week 
helped  about  400  with  more  or  less  money — after  full 
investigation. 

At  the  Embassy  a  secretary  remains  till  bed-time,  which 
generally  means  till  midnight;  and  I  go  back  there  for  an 
hour  or  two  every  night. 

The  financial  help  we  give  to  German  and  Austrian 
subjects  (poor  devils)  is  given,  of  course,  at  their  embassies, 
where  we  have  men — our  men — in  charge.  Each  of  these 
governments  accepted  my  offer  to  give  our  Ambassadors 
(Gerard  and  Penfield)  a  sum  of  money  to  help  Americans 
if  I  would  set  aside  an  equal  sum  to  help  their  people  here. 
The  German  fund  that  I  thus  began  with  was  $50,000; 
the  Austrian,  $25,000.  All  this  and  more  will  be  needed 
before  the  war  ends. — All  this  activity  is  kept  up  with 
scrupulous  attention  to  the  British  rules  and  regulations. 
In  fact,  we  are  helping  this  Government  much  in  the  man- 
agement of  these  "alien  enemies,"  as  they  call  them. 

I  am  amazed  at  the  good  health  we  all  keep  with  this 
big  volume  of  work  and  the  long  hours.  Not  a  man  nor  a 
woman  has  been  ill  a  day.  I  have  known  something 
about  work  and  the  spirit  of  good  work  in  other  organiza- 
tions of  various  sorts ;  but  I  never  saw  one  work  in  better 
spirit  than  this.  And  remember,  most  of  them  are  volun- 
teers. 

The  soldiers  here  complained  for  weeks  in  private  about 
the  lethargy  of  the  people — the  slowness  of  men  to  enlist. 
But  they  seemed  to  me  to  complain  with  insufficient  rea- 
son. For  now  they  come  by  thousands.  They  do  need 
more  men  in  the  field,  and  they  may  conscript  them,  but 
I  doubt  the  necessity.  But  I  run  across  such  incidents 
as  these:  I  met  the  Dowager  Countess  of  D —  yesterday 
— a  woman  of  65,  as  tall  as  I  and  as  erect  herself  as  a 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE    STRESS   OF  WAR  331 

soldier,  who  might  be  taken  for  a  woman  of  40,  prema- 
turely gray.  "I  had  five  sons  in  the  Boer  War.  I  have 
three  in  this  war.  I  do  not  know  where  any  one  of  them 
is."  Mrs.  Page's  maid  is  talking  of  leaving  her.  "My 
two  brothers  have  gone  to  the  war  and  perhaps  I  ought  to 
help  their  wives  and  children."  The  Countess  and  the 
maid  are  of  the  same  blood,  each  alike  unconquerable. 
My  chauffeur  has  talked  all  day  about  the  naval  battle  in 
which  five  German  ships  were  lately  sunk.1  He  reminded 
me  of  the  night  two  months  ago  when  he  drove  Mrs.  Page 
and  me  to  dine  with  Sir  John  and  Lady  Jellicoe — Jellicoe 
now,  you  know,  being  in  command  of  the  British  fleet. 

This  Kingdom  has  settled  down  to  war  as  its  one  great 
piece  of  business  now  in  hand,  and  it  is  impossible,  as  the 
busy,  burdensome  days  pass,  to  pick  out  events  or  impres- 
sions that  one  can  be  sure  are  worth  writing.  For  instance 
a  soldier — a  man  in  the  War  Office — told  me  to-day  that 
Lord  Kitchener  had  just  told  him  that  the  war  may  last 
for  several  years.  That,  I  confess,  seems  to  me  very  im- 
probable, and  (what  is  of  more  importance)  it  is  not  the 
notion  held  by  most  men  whose  judgment  I  respect.  But 
all  the  military  men  say  it  will  be  long.  It  would  take 
several  years  to  kill  that  vast  horde  of  Germans,  but  it 
will  not  take  so  long  to  starve  them  out.  Food  here  is 
practically  as  cheap  as  it  was  three  months  ago  and  the  sea 
routes  are  all  open  to  England  and  practically  all  closed  to 
Germany.  The  ultimate  result,  of  course,  will  be  Ger- 
many's defeat.  But  the  British  are  now  going  about  the 
business  of  war  as  if  they  knew  they  would  continue  it  in- 
definitely. The  grim  efficiency  of  their  work  even  in  small 
details  was  illustrated  to-day  by  the  Government's  in- 
forming us  that  a  German  handy  man,  whom  the  German 
Ambassador  left  at  his  Embassy,  with  the  English  Govern- 
evidently  the  battle  of  Heligoland  Bight  of  August  28, 1914. 


332       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

ment's  consent,  is  a  spy — that  he  sends  verbal  messages 
to  Germany  by  women  who  are  permitted  to  go  home,  and 
that  they  have  found  letters  written  by  him  sewed  in  some 
of  these  women's  undergarments !  This  man  has  been  at 
work  there  every  day  under  the  two  very  good  men  whom 
I  have  put  in  charge  there  and  who  have  never  suspected 
him.  How  on  earth  they  found  this  out  simply  passes 
my  understanding.  Fortunately  it  doesn't  bring  any  em- 
barrassment to  us ;  he  was  not  in  our  pay  and  he  was  left 
by  the  German  Ambassador  with  the  British  Government's 
consent,  to  take  care  of  the  house.  Again,  when  the  Ger- 
man Chancellor  made  a  statement  two  days  ago  about 
the  causes  of  the  war,  in  a  few  hours  Sir  Edward  Grey 
issued  a  statement  showing  that  the  Chancellor  had  mis- 
stated every  important  historic  fact. — The  other  day  a 
commercial  telegram  was  sent  (or  started)  by  Mr.  Bryan 
for  some  bank  or  trading  concern  in  the  United  States, 
managed  by  Germans,  to  some  correspondent  of  theirs  in 
Germany.  It  contained  the  words,  "Where  is  Harry?" 
The  censor  here  stopped  it.  It  was  brought  to  me  with 
the  explanation  that  "Harry  "  is  one  of  the  most  notorious 
of  German  spies — whom  they  would  like  to  catch.  The 
English  were  slow  in  getting  into  full  action,  but  now  they 
never  miss  a  trick,  little  or  big. 

The  Germans  have  far  more  than  their  match  in  re- 
sources and  in  shrewdness  and — in  character.  As  the 
bloody  drama  unfolds  itself,  the  hollow  pretence  and  es- 
sential barbarity  of  Prussian  militarism  become  plainer 
and  plainer:  there  is  no  doubt  of  that.  And  so  does  the 
invincibility  of  this  race.  A  well-known  Englishman  told 
me  to-day  that  his  three  sons,  his  son-in-law,  and  half  his 
office  men  are  in  the  military  service,  "where  they  belong 
in  a  time  like  this."  The  lady  who  once  so  sharply  criti- 
cized this  gentleman  to  Mrs.  Page  has  a  son  and  a  brother 


\ 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE   STRESS   OF  WAR  333 

in  the  army  in  France.  It  makes  you  take  a  fresh  grip  on 
your  eyelids  to  hear  either  of  these  talk.  In  fact  the  strain 
on  one's  emotions,  day  in  and  day  out,  makes  one  wonder 
if  the  world  is  real — or  is  this  a  vast  dream?  From  sheer 
emotional  exhaustion  I  slept  almost  all  day  last  Sunday, 
though  I  had  not  for  several  days  lost  sleep  at  all.  Many 
persons  tell  me  of  their  similar  experiences.  The  universe 
seems  muffled.  There  is  a  ghostly  silence  in  London  (so 
it  seems) ;  and  only  dim  street  lights  are  lighted  at  night. 
No  experience  seems  normal.  A  vast  organization  is 
working  day  and  night  down  town  receiving  Belgian 
refugees.  They  become  the  guests  of  the  English.  They 
are  assigned  to  people's  homes,  to  boarding  houses,  to 
institutions.  They  are  taking  care  of  them — this  govern- 
ment and  this  people  are.  I  do  not  recall  when  one  nation 
ever  did  another  whole  nation  just  such  a  hospitable  ser- 
vice as  this.  You  can't  see  that  work  going  on  and  re- 
main unmoved.  An  old  woman  who  has  an  income  of  $15 
a  week  decided  that  she  could  live  on  $7.50.  She  buys  milk 
with  the  other  $7.50  and  goes  to  meet  every  train  at  one 
of  the  big  stations  with  a  basket  filled  with  baby  bottles, 
and  she  gives  milk  to  every  hungry-looking  baby  she  sees. 
Our  American  committeeman,  Hoover,  saw  her  in  trouble 
the  other  day  and  asked  her  what  was  the  matter.  She 
explained  that  the  police  would  no  longer  admit  her  to  the 
platform  because  she  didn't  belong  to  any  relief  committee. 
He  took  her  to  headquarters  and  said:  "Do  you  see  this 
good  old  lady?  She  puts  you  and  me  and  everybody  else 
to  shame — do  you  understand  ?"  The  old  lady  now  gets  to 
the  platform.  Hoover  himself  gave  $5,000  for  helping 
stranded  Americans  and  he  goes  to  the  trains  to  meet  them, 
while  the  war  has  stopped  his  big  business  and  his  big 
income.  This  is  a  sample  of  the  noble  American  end  of 
the  story. 


334      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

These  are  the  saving  class  of  people  to  whom  life  be- 
comes a  bore  unless  they  can  help  somebody.  There's 
just  such  a  fellow  in  Brussels — you  may  have  heard  of 
him,  for  his  name  is  Whitlock.  Stories  of  his  showing 
himself  a  man  come  out  of  that  closed-up  city  every  week. 
To  a  really  big  man,  it  doesn't  matter  whether  his  post  is  a 
little  post,  or  a  big  post  but,  if  I  were  President,  I'd  give 
Whitlock  a  big  post.  There's  another  fellow  somewhere 
in  Germany — a  consul — of  whom  I  never  heard  till  the 
other  day.  But  people  have  taken  to  coming  in  my  office 
— English  ladies — who  wish  to  thank  "you  and  your  great 
government"  for  the  courage  and  courtesy  of  this  consul.1 
Stories  about  him  will  follow.  Herrick,  too,  in  Paris, 
somehow  causes  Americans  and  English  and  even  Guate- 
malans who  come  along  to  go  out  of  their  way  to  say  what 
he  has  done  for  them.  Now  there  is  a  quality  in  the  old 
woman  with  the  baby  bottles,  and  in  the  consul  and  in 
Whitlock  and  Hoover  and  Herrick  and  this  English  nation 
which  adopts  the  Belgians — a  quality  that  is  invincible. 
When  folk  like  these  come  down  the  road,  I  respectfully  do 
obeisance  to  them.  And — it's  this  kind  of  folk  that  the 
Germans  have  run  up  against.  I  thank  Heaven  I'm  of 
their  race  and  blood. 

The  w  hole  world  is  bound  to  be  changed  as  a  result  of 
this  war.  If  Germany  should  win,  our  Monroe  Doctrine 
would  at  once  be  shot  in  two,  and  we  should  have  to  get 
"out  of  the  sun."  The  military  party  is  a  party  of  con- 
quest— absolutely.  If  England  wins,  as  of  course  she 
will,  it'll  be  a  bigger  and  a  stronger  England,  with  no 
strong  enemy  in  the  world,  with  her  Empire  knit  closer 
than  ever — India,  Canada,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  South 
Africa,  Egypt;  under  obligations  to  and  in  alliance  with 

*The  reference  in  all  probability  is  to  Mr.  Charles  L.  Hoover,  at  that  time 
American  Consul  at  Carlsbad. 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE   STRESS   OF   WAR  335 

Russia  I  England  will  not  need  our  friendship  as  much  as 
she  now  needs  it;  and  there  may  come  governments  here 
that  will  show  they  do  not.  In  any  event,  you  see,  the 
world  will  be  changed.  It's  changed  already:  witness 
Bernstorff1  and  Munsterberg2  playing  the  part  once  played 
by  Irish  agitators! 

All  of  which  means  that  it  is  high  time  we  were  con- 
structing a  foreign  service.  First  of  all,  Congress  ought 
to  make  it  possible  to  have  half  a  dozen  or  more  permanent 
foreign  under-secretaries  —  men  who,  after  service  in  the 
Department,  could  go  out  as  Ministers  and  Ambassadors  ; 
it  ought  generously  to  reorganize  the  whole  thing.  It 
ought  to  have  a  competent  study  made  of  the  foreign 
offices  of  other  governments.  Of  course  it  ought  to  get 
room  to  work  in.  Then  it  ought  at  once  to  give  its 
Ambassadors  and  Ministers  homes  and  dignified  treat- 
ment. We've  got  to  play  a  part  in  the  world  whether  we 
wish  to  or  not.  Think  of  these  things. 

The  blindest  great  force  in  this  world  to-day  is  the 
Prussian  War  Party  —  blind  and  stupid.  —  Well,  and  the 
most  weary  man  in  London  just  at  this  hour  is 

Your  humble  servant, 

W.  H.  P. 
but  he'll  be  all  right  in  the  morning. 

To  Arthur  W.  Page 

[Undated]3 
DEAR  ARTHUR: 

.  .  .  I  recall  one  night  when  we  were  dining  at  Sir 
John  Jellicoe's,  he  told  me  that  the  Admiralty  never  slept 
—  that  he  had  a  telephone  by  his  bed  every  night. 

Ambassador  in  Washington. 


2Professor  of  Psychology  at  Harvard  University,  whose  openly  expressed  pro- 
Germanism  was  making  him  exceedingly  unpopular  in  the  United  States. 
'Evidently  written  in  the  latter  part  of  September,  1914. 


336       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

"Did  it  ever  ring?"  I  asked. 

"No;  but  it  will." 

You  begin  to  see  pretty  clearly  how  English  history 
has  been  made  and  makes  itself.  This  afternoon  Lady 

S told  your  mother  of  her  three  sons,  one  on  a  warship 

in  the  North  Sea,  another  with  the  army  in  France,  and 
a  third  in  training  to  go.  "How  brave  you  all  are!"  said 
your  mother,  and  her  answer  was:  "They  belong  to  their 
country;  we  can't  do  anything  else."  One  of  the 
daughters-in-law  of  the  late  Lord  Salisbury  came  to  see 
me  to  find  out  if  I  could  make  an  inquiry  about  her  son 
who  was  reported  "missing"  after  the  battle  of  Mons. 
She  was  dry-eyed,  calm,  self-restrained — very  grateful 
for  the  effort  I  promised  to  make;  but  a  Spartan  woman 
would  have  envied  her  self-possession.  It  turned  out 
that  her  son  was  dead. 

You  hear  experiences  like  these  almost  every  day. 
These  are  the  kinds  of  women  and  the  kinds  of  men  that 
have  made  the  British  Empire  and  the  English  race.  You 
needn't  talk  of  decadence.  All  their  great  qualities  are 
in  them  here  and  now.  I  believe  that  half  the  young  men 
who  came  to  Katharine's1  dances  last  winter  and  who  used 
to  drop  in  at  the  house  once  in  a  while  are  dead  in  France 
already.  They  went  as  a  matter  of  course.  This  is  the 
reason  they  are  going  to  win.  Now  these  things  impress 
you,  as  they  come  to  you  day  by  day. 

There  isn't  any  formal  social  life  now — no  dinners,  no 
parties.  A  few  friends  dine  with  a  few  friends  now  and 
then  very  quietly.  The  ladies  of  fashion  are  hospital 
nurses  and  Red  Cross  workers,  or  they  are  collecting 
socks  and  blankets  for  the  soldiers.  One  such  woman 
told  your  mother  to-day  that  she  went  to  one  of  the  re- 
cruiting camps  every  day  and  taught  the  young  fellows 

1Misa  Katharine  A.  Page,  the  Ambassador's  daughter. 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE   STRESS   OF  WAR  337 

what  colloquial  French  she  could.  Every  man,  woman, 
and  child  seems  to  be  doing  something.  In  the  ordinary 
daily  life,  we  see  few  of  them:  everybody  is  at  work  some- 
where. 

We  live  in  a  world  of  mystery:  nothing  can  surprise  us. 
The  rumour  is  that  a  servant  in  one  of  the  great  families 
sent  word  to  the  Germans  where  the  three  English  cruisers1 
were  that  German  submarines  blew  up  the  other  day. 
Not  a  German  in  the  Kingdom  can  earn  a  penny.  We're 
giving  thousands  of  them  money  at  the  German  Embassy 
to  keep  them  alive.  Our  Austrian  Embassy  runs  a  soup 
kitchen  where  it  feeds  a  lot  of  Austrians.  Your  mother 
went  around  there  the  other  day  and  they  showed  that 
they  thought  they  owe  their  daily  bread  to  her.  One  day 
she  went  to  one  of  the  big  houses  where  the  English  re- 
ceive and  distribute  the  thousands  of  Belgians  who  come 
here,  poor  creatures,  to  be  taken  care  of.  One  old  woman 
asked  your  mother  in  French  if  she  were  a  princess.  The 
lady  that  was  with  your  mother  answered,  "Une  Grande 
Dame."  That  seemed  to  do  as  well. 

This  government  doesn't  now  let  anybody  carry  any 
food  away.  But  to-day  they  consented  on  condition  I'd 
receive  the  food  (for  the  Belgians)  and  consign  it  to  Whit- 
lock.  This  is  their  way  of  keeping  it  out  of  German  hands 
-have  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  so  to  speak,  to  cover  every 
bag  of  flour  and  of  salt.  That's  only  one  of  1,000  queer 
activities  that  I  engage  in.  I  have  a  German  princess's2 
jewels  in  our  safe — $100,000  worth  of  them  in  my  keeping; 
I  have  an  old  English  nobleman's  check  for  $40,000  to  be 
sent  to  men  who  have  been  building  a  house  for  his  daugh- 


JThe  Hogue,  the  Cressy,  and  the  Aboukir  were  torpedoed  by  a  German  submarine 
September  22,  1914.  This  exploit  first  showed  the  world  the  power  of  the  sub- 
marine. 

2Princess  Lichnowsky,  wife  of  the  German  Ambassador  to  Great  Britain. 


338       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

ter  in  Dresden — to  be  sent  as  soon  as  the  German  Govern- 
ment agrees  not  to  arrest  the  lady  for  debt.  I  have  sent 
Miss  Latimer1  over  to  France  to  bring  an  Austrian  baby 
eight  months  old  whose  mother  will  take  it  to  the  United 
States  and  bring  it  up  an  American  citizen !  The  mother 
can't  go  and  get  it  for  fear  the  French  might  detain  her; 
I've  got  the  English  Government's  permission  for  the 
family  to  go  to  the  United  States.  Harold2  is  in  Belgium, 
trying  to  get  a  group  of  English  ladies  home  who  went 
there  to  nurse  wounded  English  and  Belgians  and  whom 
the  Germans  threaten  to  kidnap  and  transport  to  German 
hospitals — every  day  a  dozen  new  kinds  of  jobs. 

London  is  weird  and  muffled  and  dark  and,  in  the  West 
End,  deserted.  Half  the  lamps  are  not  lighted,  and  the 
upper  half  of  the  globes  of  the  street  lights  are  painted 
black — so  the  Zeppelin  raiders  may  not  see  them.  You've 
no  idea  what  a  strange  feeling  it  gives  one.  The  papers 
have  next  to  no  news.  The  23rd  day  of  the  great  battle 
is  reported  very  much  in  the  same  words  as  the  3rd  day 
was.  Yet  nobody  talks  of  much  else.  The  censor  erases 
most  of  the  matter  the  correspondents  write.  We're  in 
a  sort  of  dumb  as  well  as  dark  world.  And  yet,  of  course, 
we  know  much  more  here  than  they  know  in  any  other 
European  capital. 

To  the  President 

[Undated.] 
DEAR  MR.  PRESIDENT: 

When  England,  France,  and  Russia  agreed  the  other 
day  not  to  make  peace  separately,  that  cooked  the  Kaiser's 
goose.  They'll  wear  him  out.  Since  England  thus  has 
Frenchmen  and  Russians  bound,  the  Allies  are  strength- 

lPrivate  Secretary  to  Mrs.  Page. 

2Mr.  Harold  Fowler,  the  Ambassador's  Secretary. 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE   STRESS   OF  WAR  339 

ened  at  their  only  weak  place.  That  done,  England  is 
now  going  in  deliberately,  methodically,  patiently  to  do  the 
task.  Even  a  fortnight  ago,  the  people  of  this  Kingdom 
didn't  realize  all  that  the  war  means  to  them.  But  the 
fever  is  rising  now.  The  wounded  are  coming  back,  the 
dead  are  mourned,  and  the  agony  of  hearing  only  that 
such-and-such  a  man  is  missing — these  are  having  a  pro- 
digious effect.  The  men  I  meet  now  say  in  a  matter-of- 
fact  way:  "Oh,  yes!  we'll  get  'em,  of  course;  the  only 
question  is,  how  long  it  will  take  us  and  how  many  of  us 
it  will  cost.  But  no  matter,  we'll  get  'em." 

Old  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  high,  titled  world  now 
begin  by  driving  to  my  house  almost  every  morning  while 
I  am  at  breakfast.  With  many  apologies  for  calling  so 
soon  and  with  the  fear  that  they  interrupt  me,  they  ask  if 
I  can  make  an  inquiry  in  Germany  for  "my  son,"  or 
"my  nephew" — "he's  among  the  missing."  They  never 
weep ;  their  voices  do  not  falter ;  they  are  brave  and  proud 
and  self-restrained.  It  seems  a  sort  of  matter-of-course 
to  them.  Sometimes  when  they  get  home,  they  write 
me  polite  notes  thanking  me  for  receiving  them.  This 
morning  the  first  man  was  Sir  Dighton  Probyn  of  Queen 
Alexandra's  household — so  dignified  and  courteous  that 
you'd  hardly  have  guessed  his  errand.  And  at  intervals 
they  come  all  day.  Not  a  tear  have  I  seen  yet.  They 
take  it  as  a  part  of  the  price  of  greatness  and  of  empire. 
/  You  guess  at  their  grief  only  by  their  reticence.  They 
use  as  few  words  as  possible  and  then  courteously  take 
themselves  away.  'It  isn't  an  accident  that  these  people 
own  a  fifth  of  the  world.  ]  Utterly  unwarlike,  they  outlast 
anybody  else  when  war  comes.  You  don't  get  a  sense 
of  fighting  here— ^only  of  endurance  and  of  high  resolve.) 
Fighting  is  a  sort  of  incident  in  the  struggle  to  keep  their 
world  from  German  domination.  .  .  . 


340       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

To  Edward  M.  House 

October  11, 1914. 
DEAR  HOUSE: 

There  is  absolutely  nothing  to  write.  It's  war,  war, 
war  all  the  time ;  no  change  of  subject ;  and,  if  you  changed 
with  your  tongue,  you  couldn't  change  in  your  thought; 
war,  war,  war — "for  God's  sake  find  out  if  my  son  is  dead 
or  a  prisoner";  rumours — they  say  that  two  French  gen- 
erals were  shot  for  not  supporting  French,  and  then  they 
say  only  one ;  and  people  come  who  have  helped  take  the 
wounded  French  from  the  field  and  they  won't  even  talk,  it 
is  so  horrible;  and  a  lady  says  that  her  own  son  (wounded) 
told  her  that  when  a  man  raised  up  in  the  trench  to  fire, 
the  stench  was  so  awful  that  it  made  him  sick  for  an 
hour;  and  the  poor  Belgians  come  here  by  the  tens  of 
thousands,  and  special  trains  bring  the  English  wounded ; 
and  the  newspapers  tell  little  or  nothing — every  day's 
reports  like  the  preceding  days';  and  yet  nobody  talks 
about  anything  else. 

Now  and  then  the  subject  of  its  settlement  is  men- 
tioned— Belgium  and  Serbia,  of  course,  to  be  saved  and 
as  far  as  possible  indemnified;  Bussia  to  have  the  Slav- 
Austrian  States  and  Constantinople;  France  to  have 
Alsace-Lorraine,  of  course;  and  Poland  to  go  to  Bussia; 
Schleswig-Holstein  and  the  Kiel  Canal  no  longer  to  be 
German;  all  the  South-German  States  to  become  Austrian 
and  none  of  the  German  States  to  be  under  Prussian  rule ; 
the  Hohenzollerns  to  be  eliminated;  the  German  fleet, 
or  what  is  left  of  it,  to  become  Great  Britain's;  and  the 
German  colonies  to  be  used  to  satisfy  such  of  the  Allies 
as  clamour  for  more  than  they  get. 

Meantime  this  invincible  race  is  doing  this  revolution- 
ary task  marvellously — volunteering ;  trying  to  buy  arms 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE   STRESS   OF   WAR  341 

in  the  United  States  (a  Pittsburgh  manufacturer  is  now 
here  trying  to  close  a  bargain  with  the  War  Office!);1 
knitting  socks  and  mufflers;  taking  in  all  the  poor  Bel- 
gians; stopping  all  possible  expenditure;  darkening  Lon- 
don at  night;  doing  every  conceivable  thing  to  win  as  if 
they  had  been  waging  this  war  always  and  meant  to  do 
nothing  else  for  the  rest  of  their  lives — and  not  the  slight- 
est doubt  about  the  result  and  apparently  indifferent  how 
long  it  lasts  or  how  much  it  costs. 

Every  aspect  of  it  gets  on  your  nerves.  I  can't  keep 
from  wondering  how  the  world  will  seem  after  it  is  over — 
Germany  (that  is,  Prussia  and  its  system)  cut  out  like  a 
cancer;  England  owning  still  more  of  the  earth;  Belgium — 
all  the  men  dead;  France  bankrupt;  Russia  admitted  to 
the  society  of  nations ;  the  British  Empire  entering  on  a 
new  lease  of  life ;  no  great  navy  but  one ;  no  great  army 
but  the  Russian;  nearly  all  governments  in  Europe  bank- 
rupt ;  Germany  gone  from  the  sea — in  ten  years  it  will  be 
difficult  to  recall  clearly  the  Europe  of  the  last  ten  years. 
And  the  future  of  the  world  more  than  ever  in  our  hands ! 

We  here  don't  know  what  you  think  or  what  you  know 
at  home;  we  haven't  yet  any  time  to  read  United  States 
newspapers,  which  come  very,  very  late;  nobody  writes 
us  real  letters  (or  the  censor  gets  'em,  perhaps !) ;  and  so 
the  war,  the  war,  the  war  is  the  one  thing  that  holds  our 
minds. 

We  have  taken  a  house  for  the  Chancery2 — almost  the 
size  of  my  house  in  Grosvenor  Square — for  the  same 
sum  as  rent  that  the  landlord  proposed  hereafter  to  charge 
us  for  the  old  hole  where  we've  been  for  twenty-nine 
years.  For  the  first  time  Uncle  Sam  has  a  decent  place 

Probably  a  reference  to  Mr.  Charles  M.  Schwab,  President  of  the  Bethlehem 
Steel  Company,  who  was  in  London  at  this  time  on  this  errand. 

2No.  4  Grosvenor  Gardens. 


342       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER  H.    PAGE 

in  London.  We've  five  times  as  much  room  and  ten 
times  as  much  work.  Now — just  this  last  week  or  two — 
I  get  off  Sundays:  that's  doing  well.  And  I  don't  now 
often  go  back  at  night.  So,  you  see,  we've  much  to  be 
thankful  for. — Shall  we  insure  against  Zeppelins?  That's 
what  everybody's  asking.  I  told  the  Spanish  Ambas- 
sador yesterday  that  I  am  going  to  ask  the  German  Gov- 
ernment for  instructions  about  insuring  their  Embassy 
here! 

Write  and  send  some  news.  I  saw  an  American  to-day 
who  says  he's  going  home  to-morrow.  "Cable  me," 
said  I,  "if  you  find  the  continent  where  it  used  to  be." 

Faithfully  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

P.  S.  It  is  strange  how  little  we  know  what  you  know 
on  your  side  and  just  what  you  think,  what  relative  value 
you  put  on  this  and  what  on  that.  There's  a  new  sort 
of  loneliness  sprung  up  because  of  the  universal  absorp- 
tion in  the  war. 

And  I  hear  all  sorts  of  contradictory  rumours  about 
the  effect  of  the  German  crusade  in  the  United  States. 
Oh  well,  the  world  has  got  to  choose  whether  it  will  have 
English  or  German  domination  in  Europe ;  that's  the  single 
big  question  at  issue.  For  my  part  I'll  risk  the  English 
and  then  make  a  fresh  start  ourselves  to  outstrip  them 
in  the  spread  of  well-being;  in  the  elevation  of  mankind 
of  all  classes;  in  the  broadening  of  democracy  and  demo- 
cratic rule  (which  is  the  sheet-anchor  of  all  men's  hopes 
just  as  bureaucracy  and  militarism  are  the  destruction 
of  all  men's  hopes) ;  in  the  spread  of  humane  feeling  and 
action;  in  the  growth  of  human  kindness;  in  the  tender 
treatment  of  women  and  children  and  the  old ;  in  litera- 
ture, in  art;  in  the  abatement  of  suffering;  in  great  changes 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE   STRESS   OF   WAR  343 

I  in  economic  conditions  which  discourage  poverty;  and  in 
science  which  gives  us  new  leases  on  life  and  new  tools 
and  wider  visions.  These  are  our  world  tasks,  with  Eng- 
land as  our  friendly  rival  and  helper.  God  bless  us. 

W.  H.  P. 

To  Arthur  W.  Page 

London,  November  6,  1914. 
DEAR  ARTHUR: 

Those  excellent  photographs,  those  excellent  apples, 
those  excellent  cigars — thanks.  I'm  thinking  of  sending 
Kitty1  over  again.  They  all  spell  and  smell  and  taste 
of  home — of  the  U.  S.  A.  Even  the  messenger  herself 
seems  Unitedstatesy,  and  that's  a  good  quality,  I  assure 
you.  She's  told  us  less  news  than  you'd  think  she  might 
for  so  long  a  journey  and  so  long  a  visit;  but  that's  the 
way  with  us  all.  And,  I  dare  say,  if  it  were  all  put  to- 
gether it  would  make  a  pretty  big  news-budget.  And 
luckily  for  us  (I  often  think  we  are  among  the  luckiest 
families  in  the  world)  all  she  says  is  quite  cheerful.  It's 
a  wonderful  report  she  makes  of  County  Line2 — the  coun- 
try, the  place,  the  house,  and  its  inhabitants.  Maybe, 
praise  God,  I'll  see  it  myself  some  day — it  and  them. 

But — but — I  don't  know  when  and  can't  guess  out  of 
this  vast  fog  of  war  and  doom.  The  worst  of  it  is  nobody 
knows  just  what  is  happening.  I  have,  for  an  example, 
known  for  a  week  of  the  blowing  up  of  a  British  dread- 
naught3 — thousands  of  people  know  it  privately — and  yet 
it  isn't  published!  Such  secrecy  makes  you  fear  there 
may  be  other  and  even  worse  secrets.  But  I  don't  really 


Katharine  A.  Page  had  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  the  United  States. 
2Mr.  Arthur  W.  Page's  country  home  on  Long  Island. 

'Evidently  the  Audacious,  sunk  by  mine  off  the  North  of  Ireland,  October  27, 
1914. 


344       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

believe  there  are.  What  I  am  trying  to  say  is,  so  far  as 
news  (and  many  other  things)  go,  we  are  under  a  military 
rule. 

It's  beginning  to  wear  on  us  badly.  It  presses  down, 
presses  down,  presses  down  in  an  indescribable  way. 
All  the  people  you  see  have  lost  sons  or  brothers ;  mourn- 
ing becomes  visible  over  a  wider  area  all  the  time;  peo- 
ple talk  of  nothing  else;  all  the  books  are  about  the  war; 
ordinary  social  life  is  suspended — people  are  visibly 
growing  older.  And  there  are  some  aspects  of  it  that  are 
incomprehensible.  For  instance,  a  group  of  American 
and  English  military  men  and  correspondents  were  talk- 
ing with  me  yesterday — men  who  have  been  on  both 
sides — in  Germany  and  Belgium  and  in  France — and  they 
say  that  the  Germans  in  France  alone  have  had  750,000 
men  killed.  The  Allies  have  lost  400,000  to  500,000. 
This  in  France  only.  Take  the  other  fighting  lines  and 
there  must  already  be  a  total  of  2,000,000  killed.  No- 
thing like  that  has  ever  happened  before  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  A  flood  or  a  fire  or  a  wreck  which  has 
killed  500  has  often  shocked  all  mankind.  Yet  we  know 
of  this  enormous  slaughter  and  (in  a  way)  are  not  greatly 
moved.  I  don't  know  of  a  better  measure  of  the  brutal- 
izing effect  of  war — it's  bringing  us  to  take  a  new  and  more 
inhuman  standard  to  measure  events  by. 

As  for  any  political  or  economic  reckoning — that's 
beyond  any  man's  ability  yet.  I  see  strings  of  incom- 
prehensible figures  that  some  economist  or  other  now  and 
then  puts  in  the  papers,  summing  up  the  loss  in  pounds 
sterling.  But  that  means  nothing  because  we  have  no 
proper  measure  of  it.  If  a  man  lose  $10  or  $10,000  we 
can  grasp  that.  But  when  nations  shoot  away  so  many 
million  pounds  sterling  every  day — that  means  nothing 
to  me.  I  do  know  that  there's  going  to  be  no  money  on 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE    STRESS   OF  WAR  345 

this  side  the  world  for  a  long  time  to  buy  American  se- 
curities. The  whole  world  is  going  to  be  hard  up  in  con- 
sequence of  the  bankruptcy  of  these  nations,  the  inestim- 
able destruction  of  property,  and  the  loss  of  productive 
men.  I  fancy  that  such  a  change  will  come  in  the  eco- 
nomic and  financial  readjustment  of  the  world  as  nobody 
can  yet  guess  at. — Are  Americans  studying  these  things? 
It  is  not  only  South-American  trade;  it  is  all  sorts  of 
manufacturers;  it  is  financial  influence — if  we  can  quit 
spending  and  wasting,  and  husband  our  earnings.  There's 
no  telling  the  enormous  advantages  we  shall  gain  if  we 
are  wise. 

The  extent  to  which  the  German  people  have  permitted 
themselves  to  be  fooled  is  beyond  belief.  As  a  little  in- 
stance of  it,  I  enclose  a  copy  of  a  letter  that  Lord  Bryce 
gave  me,  written  by  an  English  woman  who  did  good 
social  work  in  her  early  life — a  woman  of  sense — and 
who  married  a  German  merchant  and  has  spent  her  mar- 
ried life  in  Germany.  She  is  a  wholly  sincere  person. 
This  letter  she  wrote  to  a  friend  in  England  and — she 
believes  every  word  of  it.  If  she  believes  it,  the  great 
mass  of  the  Germans  believe  similar  things.  I  have 
heard  of  a  number  of  such  letters — sincere,  as  this  one  is. 
It  gives  a  better  insight  into  the  average  German  mind 
than  a  hundred  speeches  by  the  Emperor. 

This  German  and  Austrian  diplomatic  business  in- 
volves an  enormous  amount  of  work.  I've  now  sent  one 
man  to  Vienna  and  another  to  Berlin  to  straighten  out 
almost  hopeless  tangles  and  lies  about  prisoners  and  such 
things  and  to  see  if  they  won't  agree  to  swap  more  ci- 
vilians detained  in  each  country.  On  top  of  these,  yester- 
day came  the  Turkish  Embassy!  Alas,  we  shall  never 
see  old  Tewfik1  again !  This  business  begins  briskly  to-day 

^Tewfik  Pasha,  the  very  popular  Turkish  Ambassador  to  Great  Britain. 


346       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

with  the  detention  of  every  Turkish  consul  in  the  Brit- 
ish Empire.  Lord !  I  dread  the  missionaries ;  and  I  know 
they're  coming  now.  This  makes  four  embassies.  We 
put  up  a  sign,  "The  American  Embassy,"  on  every 
one  of  them.  Work?  We're  worked  to  death.  Two 
nights  ago  I  didn't  get  time  to  read  a  letter  or  even  a 
telegram  that  had  come  that  day  till  1 1  o'clock  at  night. 
For  on  top  of  all  these  Embassies,  I've  had  to  become 
Commissary-General  to  feed  6,000,000  starving  people  in 
Belgium;  and  practically  all  the  food  must  come  from  the 
United  States.  You  can't  buy  food  for  export  in  any 
country  in  Europe.  (  The  devastation  of  Belgium  de- 
feats the  Germans. — I  don't  mean  in  battle  but  I  mean 
in  the  after-judgment  of  mankind.)  They  cannot  recover 
from  that  half  as  soon  as  they  may  recover  from  the 
economic  losses  of  the  war.  The  reducing  of  those  people 
to  starvation — that  will  stick  to  damn  them  in  history, 
whatever  they  win  or  whatever  they  lose. 

When's  it  going  to  end?  Everybody  who  ought  to 
know  says  at  the  earliest  next  year — next  summer.  Many 
say  in  two  years.  As  for  me,  I  don't  know.  I  don't  see 
how  it  can  end  soon.  Neither  can  lick  the  other  to  a 
frazzle  and  neither  can  afford  to  give  up  till  it  is  com- 
pletely licked.  This  way  of  living  in  trenches  and  fighting 
a  month  at  a  time  in  one  place  is  a  new  thing  in  warfare. 
Many  a  man  shoots  a  cannon  all  day  for  a  month  without 
seeing  a  single  enemy.  There  are  many  wounded  men 
back  here  who  say  they  haven't  seen  a  single  German. 
When  the  trenches  become  so  full  of  dead  men  that  the 
living  can't  stay  there  longer,  they  move  back  to  other 
trenches.  So  it  goes  on.  Each  side  has  several  more 
million  men  to  lose.  What  the  end  will  be — I  mean  when 
it  will  come,  I  don't  see  how  to  guess.  The  Allies  are 
obliged  to  win;  they  have  more  food  and  more  money, 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE    STRESS   OF   WAR  347 

and  in  the  long  run,  more  men.  But  the  German  fighting 
machine  is  by  far  the  best  organization  ever  made — not 
the  best  men,  but  the  best  organization;  and  the  whole 
German  people  believe  what  the  woman  writes  whose 
letter  I  send  you.  It'll  take  a  long  time  to  beat  it. 

Affectionately, 

W.  H.  P. 

The  letter  that  Page  inclosed,  and  another  copy  of 
which  was  sent  to  the  President,  purported  to  be  written 
by  the  English  wife  of  a  German  in  Bremen.  It  was  as 
follows: 

It  is  very  difficult  to  write,  more  difficult  to  believe 
that  what  I  write  will  succeed  in  reaching  you.  My 
husband  insists  on  my  urging  you — it  is  not  necessary  I 
am  sure — to  destroy  the  letter  and  all  possible  indications 
of  its  origin,  should  you  think  it  worth  translating.  The 
letter  will  go  by  a  business  friend  of  my  husband's  to 
Holland,  and  be  got  off  from  there.  For  our  business 
with  Holland  is  now  exceedingly  brisk  as  you  may  under- 
stand. Her  neutrality  is  most  precious  to  us.1 

Well,  I  have  of  course  a  divided  mind.  I  think  of  those 
old  days  in  Liverpool  and  Devonshire — how  far  off  they 
seem !  And  yet  I  spent  all  last  year  in  England.  It  was 
in  March  last  when  I  was  with  you  and  we  talked  of  the 
amazing  treatment  of  your  army — I  cannot  any  longer 
call  it  our  army — by  ministers  crying  for  the  resignation 
of  its  officers  and  eager  to  make  their  humiliation  an 
election  cry!  How  far  off  that  seems,  too!  Let  me 
tell  you  that  it  was  the  conduct  of  your  ministers,  Church- 
ill especially,  that  made  people  here  so  confident  that  your 

Germany  was  conducting  her  trade  with  the  neutral  world  largely  through 
Dutch  and  Danish  ports. 


348       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Government  could  not  fight.  It  seemed  impossible  that 
Lloyd  George  and  his  following  could  have  the  effrontery 
to  pose  as  a  "war"  cabinet;  still  more  impossible  that 
any  sane  people  could  trust  them  if  they  did !  Perhaps 
you  may  remember  a  talk  we  had  also  in  March  about 
Matthew  Arnold  whom  I  was  reading  again  during  my 
convalescence  at  Sidmouth.  You  said  that  "Friend- 
ship's Garland"  and  its  Arminius  could  not  be  written 
now.  I  disputed  that  and  told  you  that  it  was  still  true 
that  your  Government  talked  and  "gassed"  just  as  much 
as  ever,  and  were  wilfully  blind  to  the  fact  that  your 
power  of  action  was  wholly  unequal  to  your  words.  As 
in  1870  so  now.  Nay,  worse,  your  rulers  have  always 
known  it  perfectly  well,  but  refused  to  see  it  or  to  admit 
it,  because  they  wanted  office  and  knew  that  to  say  the 
truth  would  bring  the  radical  vote  in  the  cities  upon  their 
poor  heads.  It  is  the  old  hypocrisy,  in  the  sense  in  which 
Germans  have  always  accused  your  nation:  alas!  and  it 
is  half  my  nation  too.  You  pride  yourselves  on  "  Keeping 
your  word"  to  Belgium.  But  you  pride  yourselves  also, 
not  so  overtly  just  now,  on  always  refusing  to  prepare 
yourselves  to  keep  that  word  in  deed.  In  the  first  days 
of  August  you  knew,  absolutely  and  beyond  all  doubt, 
that  you  could  do  nothing  to  make  good  your  word.  You 
had  not  the  moral  courage  to  say  so,  and,  having  said 
so,  to  act  accordingly  and  to  warn  Belgium  that  your 
promise  was  "a  scrap  of  paper,"  and  effectively  nothing 
more.  It  is  nothing  more,  and  has  proved  to  be  nothing 
more,  but  you  do  not  see  that  your  indelible  disgrace  lies 
just  in  this,  that  you  unctuously  proclaim  that  you  are 
keeping  your  word  when  all  the  time  you  know,  you  have 
always  known,  that  you  refused  utterly  and  completely 
to  take  the  needful  steps  to  enable  you  to  translate  word 
into  action.  Have  you  not  torn  up  your  "scrap  of 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE    STRESS   OF   WAR  349 

paper"  just  as  effectively  as  Germany  has?  As  my 
husband  puts  it:  England  gave  Belgium  a  check,  a  big 
check,  and  gave  it  with  much  ostentation,  but  took 
care  that  there  should  be  no  funds  to  meet  it!  Trusting 
to  your  check  Belgium  finds  herself  bankrupt,  seques- 
trated, blotted  out  as  a  nation.  But  I  know  England  well 
enough  to  foresee  that  English  statesmen,  with  our  old 
friend,  the  Manchester  Guardian,  which  we  used  to  read 
in  years  gone  by,  will  always  quote  with  pride  how  they 
"guaranteed"  the  neutrality  of  Belgium. 

As  to  the  future.  You  cannot  win.  A  nation  that  has 
prided  itself  on  making  no  sacrifice  for  political  power  or 
even  independence  must  pay  for  its  pride.  Our  house 
here  in  Bremen  has  lately  been  by  way  of  a  centre  for 
naval  men,  and  to  a  less  extent,  for  officers  of  the  neigh- 
bouring commands.  They  are  absolutely  confident  that 
they  will  land  ten  army  corps  in  England  before  Christ- 
mas. It  is  terrible  to  know  what  they  mean  to  go  for. 
They  mean  to  destroy.  Every  town  which  remotely  is 
concerned  with  war  material  is  to  be  annihilated. 
Birmingham,  Bradford,  Leeds,  Newcastle,  Sheffield, 
Northampton  are  to  be  wiped  out,  and  the  men  killed, 
ruthlessly  hunted  down.  The  fact  that  Lancashire  and 
Yorkshire  have  held  aloof  from  recruiting  is  not  to  save 
them.  The  fact  that  Great  Britain  is  to  be  a  Reichsland 
will  involve  the  destruction  of  inhabitants,  to  enable  Ger- 
man citizens  to  be  planted  in  your  country  in  their  place. 
German  soldiers  hope  that  your  poor  creatures  will  re- 
sist, as  patriots  should,  but  they  doubt  it  very  much. 
For  resistance  will  facilitate  the  process  of  clearance. 
Ireland  will  be  left  independent,  and  its  harmlessness  will 
be  guaranteed  by  its  inevitable  civil  war. 

You  may  wonder,  as  I  do  sometimes,  whether  this 
hatred  of  England  is  not  unworthy,  or  a  form  of  mental 


350       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

disease.  But  you  must  know  that  it  is  at  bottom  not 
hatred  but  contempt;  fierce,  unreasoning  scorn  for  a 
country  that  pursues  money  and  ease,  from  aristocrat  to 
trade-unionist  labourer,  when  it  has  a  great  inheritance  to 
defend.  I  feel  bitter,  too,  for  I  spent  half  my  life  in  your 
country  and  my  dearest  friends  are  all  English  still;  and 
yet  I  am  deeply  ashamed  of  the  hypocrisy  and  make- 
believe  that  has  initiated  your  national  policy  and  brought 
you  down.  Now,  one  thing  more.  England  is,  after  all, 
only  a  stepping  stone.  From  Liverpool,  Queenstown, 
Glasgow,  Belfast,  we  shall  reach  out  across  the  ocean.  I 
firmly  believe  that  within  a  year  Germany  will  have 
seized  the  new  Canal  and  proclaimed  its  defiance  of  the 
great  Monroe  Doctrine.  We  have  six  million  Germans 
in  the  United  States,  and  the  Irish-Americans  behind 
them.  The  Americans,  believe  me,  are  as  a  nation  a 
cowardly  nation,  and  will  never  fight  organized  strength 
except  in  defense  of  their  own  territories.  With  the  Nova 
Scotian  peninsula  and  the  Bermudas,  with  the  West 
Indies  and  the  Guianas  we  shall  be  able  to  dominate  the 
Americas.  By  our  possession  of  the  entire  Western  Euro- 
pean seaboard  America  can  find  no  outlet  for  its  products 
except  by  our  favour.  Her  finance  is  in  German  hands, 
her  commercial  capitals,  New  York  and  Chicago,  are  in 
reality  German  cities.  It  is  some  years  since  my  father 
and  I  were  in  New  York.  But  my  opinion  is  not  very 
different  from  that  of  the  forceful  men  who  have  planned 
this  war — that  with  Britain  as  a  base  the  control  of  the 
American  continent  is  under  existing  conditions  the  task 
of  a  couple  of  months. 

I  remember  a  conversation  with  Doctor  Dohrn,  the 
head  of  the  great  biological  station  at  Naples,  some  four 
or  five  years  ago.  He  was  complaining  of  want  of  ade- 
quate subventions  from  Berlin.  "Everything  is  wanted 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE    STRESS   OF  WAR  351 

for  the  Navy,"  he  said.  "And  what  really  does  Ger- 
many want  with  such  a  navy?"  I  asked.  "She  is  always 
saying  that  she  certainly  does  not  regard  it  as  a  weapon 
against  England."  At  that  Doctor  Dohrn  raised  his 
eyebrows.  "But  you,  gnadige  Fran,  are  a  German?" 
"Of  course."  "Well,  then,  you  will  understand  me  when 
I  say  with  all  the  seriousness  I  can  command  that  this 
fleet  of  ours  is  intended  to  deal  with  smugglers  on  the 
shores  of  the  Island  of  Riigen."  I  laughed.  He  became 
graver  still.  "The  ultimate  enemy  of  our  country  is 
America  ;*  and  I  pray  that  I  may  see  the  day  of  an  alliance 
between  a  beaten  England  and  a  victorious  Fatherland 
against  the  bully  of  the  Americas."  Well,  Germany  and 
Austria  were  never  friends  until  Sadowa  had  shown  the 
way.  Oh!  if  your  country,  which  in  spite  of  all  I  love  so 
much,  would  but  "see  things  clearly  and  see  them  whole." 
Bremen,  September  25,  1914. 

To  Ralph  W.  Page* 

London,  Sunday,  November  15,  1914. 
DEAR  RALPH: 

You  were  very  good  to  sit  down  in  Greensboro',  or  any- 
where else,  and  to  write  me  a  fine  letter.  Do  that  often. 
You  say  there's  nothing  to  do  now  in  the  Sandhills. 
Write  us  letters :  that's  a  fair  job ! 

God  save  us,  we  need  'em.  We  need  anything  from 
the  sane  part  of  the  world  to  enable  us  to  keep  our  bal- 
ance. One  of  the  commonest  things  you  hear  about  now 
is  the  insanity  of  a  good  number  of  the  poor  fellows  who 
come  back  from  the  trenches  as  well  as  of  a  good  many 

1Mr.  Irwin  Laughlin,  first  secretary  of  the  American  Embassy  in  London,  fur- 
nishes this  note:  "This  statement  about  America  was  made  to  me  more  than 
once  in  Germany,  between  1910  and  1912,  by  German  officers,  military  and 
naval." 

20f  Pinehurst,  North  Carolina,  the  Ambassador's  oldest  so». 


352       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.   PAGE 

Belgians.  The  sights  and  sounds  they've  experienced  un- 
hinge their  reason.  If  this  war  keep  up  long  enough— 
and  it  isn't  going  to  end  soon — people  who  have  had  no 
sight  of  it  will  go  crazy,  too — the  continuous  thought  of 
it,  the  inability  to  get  away  from  it  by  any  device  what- 
ever— all  this  tells  on  us  all.  Letters,  then,  plenty  of 
them — let  'em  come. 

You  are  in  a  peaceful  land.     The  war  is  a  long,  long 

way  off.     You  suffer  nothing  worse  than  a  little  idleness 

and  a  little  poverty.     They  are  nothing.     I  hope  (and 

believe)  that  you  get  enough  to  eat.     Be  content,  then. 

\  Read  the  poets,  improve  a  piece  of  land,  play  with  the 

v  baby,  learn  golf.     That's  the  happy  and  philosophic  and 

fortunate  life  in  these  times  of  world-madness. 

As  for  the  continent  of  Europe — forget  it.  We  have 
paid  far  too  much  attention  to  it.  It  has  ceased  to  be 
worth  it.  And  now  it's  of  far  less  value  to  us  -  and  will  be 
for  the  rest  of  your  life — than  it  has  ever  been  before.  An 
ancient  home  of  man,  the  home,  too,  of  beautiful  things- 
buildings,  pictures,  old  places,  old  traditions,  dead  civili- 
zations— the  place  where  man  rose  from  barbarism  to 
civilization — it  is  now  bankrupt,  its  best  young  men  dead, 
its  system  of  politics  and  of  government  a  failure,  its  social 
structure  enslaving  and  tyrannical — it  has  little  help  for 
us.  [  The  American  spirit,  which  is  the  spirit  that  con- 
cerns itself  with  making  life  better  for  the  whole  mass  of 
men — that's  at  home  at  its  best  with  us.)  The  whole 
future  of  the  race  is  in  the  new  countries — our  country 
chiefly.  This  grows  on  one  more  and  more  and  more. 
The  things  that  are  best  worth  while  are  on  our  side  of  the 
ocean.  And  we've  got  all  the  bigger  job  to  do  because  of 
this  violent  demonstration  of  the  failure  of  continental 
Europe.  It's  gone  on  living  on  a  false  basis  till  its  ele- 
ments got  so  mixed  that  it  has  simply  blown  itself  to 


ENGLAND   UNDER   THE   STRESS   OF  WAR  353 

pieces.  It  is  a  great  convulsion  of  nature,  as  an  earth- 
quake or  a  volcano  is.  Human  life  there  isn't  worth 
what  a  yellow  dog's  life  is  worth  in  Moore  County.  Don't 
bother  yourself  with  the  continent  of  Europe  any  more — 
except  to  learn  the  value  of  a  real  democracy  and  the 
benefits  it  can  confer  precisely  in  proportion  to  the  extent 
to  which  men  trust  to  it.  Did  you  ever  read  my  Ad- 
dress delivered  before  the  Royal  Institution  of  Great 
Britain?1  I  enclose  a  copy.  Now  that's  my  idea  of  the 
very  milk  of  the  word.  To  come  down  to  daily,  deadly 
things — this  upheaval  is  simply  infernal.  Parliament 
opened  the  other  day  and  half  the  old  lords  that  sat  in 
their  robes  had  lost  their  heirs  and  a  larger  part  of  the 
members  of  the  House  wore  khaki.  To-morrow  they  will 
vote  $1,125,000,000  for  war  purposes.  They  had  already 
voted  $500,000,000.  They'll  vote  more,  and  more,  and 
more,  if  necessary.  They  are  raising  a  new  army  of  2,000,- 
000  men.  Every  man  and  every  dollar  they  have  will  go 
if  necessary.  That's  what  I  call  an  invincible  people. 
The  Kaiser  woke  up  the  wrong  passenger.  But  for  fifty 
years  the  continent  won't  be  worth  living  on.  My 
heavens!  what  bankruptcy  will  follow  death! 

Affectionately, 

W.  H.  P. 

To  Frank  C.  Page2 

Sunday,  December  20th,  1914. 
DEAR  OLD  MAN: 

I  envy  both  you  and  your  mother3  your  chance  to  make 
plans  for  the  farm  and  the  house  and  all  the  rest  of  it  and 

10n  June  12, 1914.    The  title  of  the  address  was  "  Some  Aspects  of  the  American 
Democracy." 

2The  Ambassador's  youngest  son. 

3JVlrs,  W,  H.  Page  was  at  this  timo  spending  a  few  weeks  in  the  United  States. 


354       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

to  have  one  another  to  talk  to.  And,  most  of  all,  you  are 
where  you  can  now  and  then  change  the  subject.  You 
can  guess  somewhat  at  our  plight  when  Kitty  and  I  con- 
fessed to  one  another  last  night  that  we  were  dead  tired 
and  needed  to  go  to  bed  early  and  to  stay  long.  She's 
sleeping  yet,  the  dear  kid,  and  I  hope  she'll  sleep  till  lunch 
time.  There  isn't  anything  the  matter  with  us  but  the 
war;  but  that's  enough,  Heaven  knows.  It's  the  worst 
ailment  that  has  ever  struck  me.  Then,  if  you  add  to  that 
this  dark,  wet,  foggy,  sooty,  cold,  penetrating  climate — 
you  ought  to  thank  your  stars  that  you  are  not  in  it.  I'm 
glad  your  mother's  out  of  it,  as  much  as  we  miss  her;  and 
miss  her?  Good  gracious!  there's  no  telling  the  hole  her 
absence  makes  in  all  our  life.  But  Kitty  is  a  trump, 
true  blue  and  dead  game,  and  the  very  best  company  you 
can  find  in  a  day's  journey.  And,  much  as  we  miss  your 
mother,  you  mustn't  weep  for  us ;  we  are  having  some  fun 
and  are  planning  more.  I  could  have  no  end  of  fun  with 
her  if  I  had  any  time.  But  to  work  all  day  and  till  bed- 
time doesn't  leave  much  time  for  sport. 

The  farm — the  farm — the  farm — it's  yours  and  Moth- 
er's to  plan  and  make  and  do  with  as  you  wish.  I  shall 
be  happy  whatever  you  do,  even  if  you  put  the  roof  in  the 
cellar  and  the  cellar  on  top  of  the  house. 

If  you  have  room  enough  (16  X 10  plus  a  fire  and  a  bath 
are  enough  for  me),  I'll  go  down  there  and  write  a  book. 
If  you  haven't  it,  I'll  go  somewhere  else  and  write  a  book. 
I  don't  propose  to  be  made  unhappy  by  any  house  or  by 
the  lack  of  any  house  nor  by  anything  whatsoever. 

All  the  details  of  life  go  on  here  just  the  same.  The  war 
goes  as  slowly  as  death  because  it  is  death,  death  to 
millions  of  men.  We've  all  said  all  we  know  about  it  to  one 
another  a  thousand  times;  nobody  knows  anything  else; 
nobody  can  guess  when  it  will  end ;  nobody  has  any  doubt 


ENGLAND    UNDER   THE   STRESS   OF   WAR  355 

about  how  it  will  end,  unless  some  totally  improbable  and 
unexpected  thing  happens,  such  as  the  falling  out  of  the 
Allies,  which  can't  happen  for  none  of  them  can  afford  it; 
and  we  go  around  the  same  bloody  circle  all  the  time. 
The  papers  never  have  any  news ;  nobody  ever  talks  about 
anything  else;  everybody  is  tired  to  death;  nobody  is 
cheerful;  when  it  isn't  sick  Belgians,  it's  aeroplanes;  and 
when  it  isn't  aeroplanes,  it's  bombarding  the  coast  of  Eng- 
land. When  it  isn't  an  American  ship  held  up,  it's  a  fool 
American-German  arrested  as  a  spy;  and  when  it  isn't  a 
spy  it's  a  liar  who  knows  the  Zeppelins  are  coming  to- 
night. We  don't  know  anything;  we  don't  believe  any- 
body; we  should  be  surprised  at  nothing;  and  at  3  o'clock 
I'm  going  to  the  Abbey  to  a  service  in  honour  of  the  100 
years  of  peace !  The  world  has  all  got  itself  so  jumbled  up 
that  the  bays  are  all  promontories,  the  mountains  are  all 
valleys,  and  earthquakes  are  necessary  for  our  happiness. 
We  have  disasters  for  breakfast ;  mined  ships  for  luncheon ; 
burned  cities  for  dinner;  trenches  in  our  dreams,  and  bom- 
barded towns  for  small  talk. 

Peaceful  seems  the  sandy  landscape  where  you  are,  glad 
the  very  blackjacks,  happy  the  curs,  blessed  the  sheep,  in- 
teresting the  chin-whiskered  clodhopper,  innocent  the  fool 
darkey,  blessed  the  mule,  for  it  knows  no  war.  And  you 
have  your  mother — be  happy,  boy;  you  don't  know  how 
much  you  have  to  be  thankful  for. 

Europe  is  ceasing  to  be  interesting  except  as  an  example 
of  how-not-to-do-it.  It  has  no  lessons  for  us  except  as  a 
warning.  When  the  whole  continent  has  to  go  fighting — 
every  blessed  one  of  them — once  a  century,  and  half  of 
them  half  the  time  between  and  all  prepared  even  when 
they  are  not  fighting,  and  when  they  shoot  away  all  their 
money  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  get  rich  a  little  and  every- 
body else's  money,  too,  and  make  the  whole  world  poor, 


356       THE   LIFE  AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

and  when  they  kill  every  third  or  fourth  generation  of  the 
best  men  and  leave  the  worst  to  rear  families,  and  have  to 
start  over  afresh  every  time  with  a  worse  stock — give  me 
Uncle  Sam  and  his  big  farm.  We  don't  need  to  catch 
any  of  this  European  life.  We  can  do  without  it  all  as  well 
as  we  can  do  without  the  judges'  wigs  and  the  court  cos- 
tumes. Besides,  I  like  a  land  where  the  potatoes  have 
some  flavour,  where  you  can  buy  a  cigar,  and  get  your  hair 
cut  and  have  warm  bathrooms. 

Build  the  farm,  therefore;  and  let  me  hear  at  every 
stage  of  that  happy  game.  May  the  New  Year  be  the 
best  that  has  ever  come  for  you ! 

Affectionately, 

W.  H.  P. 


CHAPTER  XII 
"WAGING  NEUTRALITY" 


THE  foregoing  letters  sufficiently  portray  Page's 
attitude  toward  the  war;  they  also  show  the  extent 
to  which  he  suffered  from  the  daily  tragedy.  The  great 
burdens  placed  upon  the  Embassy  in  themselves  would 
have  exhausted  a  physical  frame  that  had  never  been 
particularly  robust;  but  more  disintegrating  than  these 
was  the  mental  distress — the  constant  spectacle  of  a 
civilization  apparently  bent  upon  its  own  destruction. 
Indeed  there  were  probably  few  men  in  Europe  upon  whom 
the  war  had  a  more  depressing  effect.  In  the  first  few 
weeks  the  Ambassador  perceptibly  grew  older ;  his  face 
became  more  deeply  lined,  his  hair  became  grayer,  his 
body  thinner,  his  step  lost  something  of  its  quickness, 
his  shoulders  began  to  stoop,  and  his  manner  became  more 
and  more  abstracted.  Page's  kindness,  geniality,  and 
consideration  had  long  since  endeared  him  to  all  the  em- 
bassy staff,  from  his  chief  secretaries  to  clerks  and  door- 
men; and  all  his  associates  now  watched  with  affectionate 
solicitude  the  extent  to  which  the  war  was  wearing  upon 
him.  "In  those  first  weeks,"  says  Mr.  Irwin  Laughlin, 
Page's  most  important  assistant  and  the  man  upon  whom 
the  routine  work  of  the  Embassy  largely  fell,  "he  acted 
like  a  man  who  was  carrying  on  his  shoulders  all  the  sins 
and  burdens  of  the  world.  I  know  no  man  who  seemed  to 
realize  so  poignantly  the  misery  and  sorrow  of  it  all.  The 
sight  of  an  England  which  he  loved  bleeding  to  death  in 

357 


358       THE    LIFE    AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

defence  of  the  things  in  which  he  most  believed  was  a  grief 
that  seemed  to  be  sapping  his  very  life." 

Page's  associates,  ho\\  ever,  noted  a  change  for  the  better 
after  the  Battle  of  the  Marne.  Except  to  his  most  inti- 
mate companions  he  said  little,  for  he  represented  a  nation 
that  was  "neutral " ;  but  the  defeat  of  the  Germans  added 
liveliness  to  his  step,  gave  a  keener  sparkle  to  his  eye,  and 
even  brought  back  some  of  his  old  familiar  gaiety  of  spirit. 
One  day  the  Ambassador  was  lunching  with  Mr.  Laughlin 
and  one  or  two  other  friends. 

"We  did  pretty  well  in  that  Battle  of  the  Marne,  didn't 
we?"  he  said. 

"Isn't  that  remark  slightly  unneutral,  Mr.  Ambassa- 
dor?" asked  Mr.  Laughlin. 

At  this  a  roar  of  laughter  went  up  from  the  table  that 
could  be  heard  for  a  considerable  distance. 

About  this  same  time  Page's  personal  secretary,  Mr. 
Harold  Fowler,  came  to  ask  the  Ambassador's  advice 
about  enlisting  in  the  British  Army.  To  advise  a  young 
man  to  take  a  step  that  might  very  likely  result  in  his 
death  was  a  heavy  responsibility,  and  the  Ambassador  re- 
fused to  accept  it.  It  was  a  matter  that  the  Secretary 
could  settle  only  with  his  own  conscience.  Mr.  Fowler 
decided  his  problem  by  joining  the  British  Army ;  he  had  a 
distinguished  career  in  its  artillery  and  aviation  service 
as  he  had  subsequently  in  the  American  Army.  Mr. 
Fowler  at  once  discovered  that  his  decision  had  been 
highly  pleasing  to  his  superior. 

"I  couldn't  advise  you  to  do  this,  Harold,"  Page  said, 
placing  his  hand  on  the  young  man's  shoulder,  "but  now 
that  you've  settled  it  yourself  I'll  say  this — if  I  were  a 
young  man  like  you  and  in  your  circumstances,  I  should 
enlist  myself." 

Yet  greatly  as  Page  abhorred  the  Prussians  and  greatly 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  359 

as  his  sympathies  from  the  first  day  of  the  war  were  en- 
listed on  the  side  of  the  Allies,  there  was  no  diplomat  in 
the  American  service  who  was  more  "neutral"  in  the 
technical  sense.  "Neutral!"  Page  once  exclaimed. 
"There's  nothing  in  the  world  so  neutral  as  this  embassy. 
Neutrality  takes  up  all  our  time."  When  he  made  this 
remark  he  was,  as  he  himself  used  to  say,  "the  German 
Ambassador  to  Great  Britain."  And  he  was  performing 
the  duties  of  this  post  with  the  most  conscientious  fidelity. 
These  duties  were  onerous  and  disagreeable  ones  and  were 
made  still  more  so  by  the  unreasonableness  of  the  German 
Government.  Though  the  American  Embassy  was  car- 
ing for  the  more  than  70,000  Germans  who  were  then 
living  in  England  and  was  performing  numerous  other 
duties,  the  Imperial  Government  never  realized  that  Page 
and  the  Embassy  staff  were  doing  it  a  service.  With 
characteristic  German  tactlessness  the  German  Foreign 
Office  attempted  to  be  as  dictatorial  to  Page  as  though  he 
had  been  one  of  its  own  junior  secretaries.  The  business 
of  the  German  Embassy  in  London  was  conducted  with 
great  ability;  the  office  work  was  kept  in  the  most  ship- 
shape condition;  yet  the  methods  were  American  methods 
and  the  Germans  seemed  aggrieved  because  the  routine 
of  the  Imperial  bureaucracy  was  not  observed.  With 
unparallelled  insolence  they  objected  to  the  American 
system  of  accounting — not  that  it  was  unsound  or  did 
not  give  an  accurate  picture  of  affairs — but  simply  that 
it  was  not  German.  Page  quietly  but  energetically 
informed  the  German  Government  that  the  American  dip- 
lomatic service  was  not  a  part  of  the  German  organiza- 
tion, that  its  bookkeeping  system  was  American,  not 
German,  that  he  was  doing  this  work  not  as  an  obligation 
but  as  a  favour,  and  that,  so  long  as  he  continued  to  do  it, 
he  would  perform  the  duty  in  his  own  way.  At  this  the 


J 


360       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Imperial  Government  subsided.  Despite  such  annoy- 
ances Page  refused  to  let  his  own  feelings  interfere  with 
the  work.  The  mere  fact  that  he  despised  the  Germans 
made  him  over-scrupulous  in  taking  all  precautions  that 
they  obtained  exact  justice.  But  this  was  all  that  the 
German  cause  in  Great  Britain  did  receive.  His  admin- 
istration of  the  German  Embassy  was  faultless  in  its 
technique,  but  it  did  not  err  on  the  side  of  over-enthu- 
siasm. 

His  behaviour  throughout  the  three  succeeding  years 
was  entirely  consistent  with  his  conception  of  "neutral- 
ity." That  conception,  as  is  apparent  from  the  letters 
already  printed,  was  not  the  Wilsonian  conception. 
Probably  no  American  diplomat  was  more  aggrieved  at 
the  President's  definition  of  neutrality  than  his  Am- 
bassador to  Great  Britain.  Page  had  no  quarrel  with 
the  original  neutrality  proclamation;  that  was  purely  a 
routine  governmental  affair,  and  at  the  time  it  was  issued 
it  represented  the  proper  American  attitude.  But  the 
President's  famous  emendations  filled  him  with  aston- 
ishment and  dismay.  "We  must  be  impartial  in  thought 
as  well  as  in  action,"  said  the  President  on  August  19th,1 
"we  must  put  a  curb  upon  our  sentiments  as  well  as  upon 
every  transaction  that  might  be  construed  as  a  prejudice 
of  one  party  to  the  prejudice  of  another."  Page  was 
prepared  to  observe  all  the  traditional  rules  of  neutrality, 
to  insist  on  American  rights  with  the  British  Government, 
and  to  do  full  legal  justice  to  the  Germans,  but  he  de- 
clined to  abrogate  his  conscience  where  his  personal 
judgment  of  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  the  conflict  were 
concerned.  "Neutrality,"  he  said  in  a  letter  to  his 
brother,  Mr.  Henry  A.  Page,  of  Aberdeen,  N.  C.,  "is  a 

*In  a  letter  addressed  to  "My  fellow  Countrymen"  and  presented  to  the  Senate 
by  Mr.  Chilton. 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY" 

quality  of  government — an  artificial  unit.  When  a  war 
comes  a  government  must  go  in  it  or  stay  out  of  it.  It 
must  make  a  declaration  to  the  world  of  its  attitude. 
That's  all  that  neutrality  is.  A  government  can  be 
neutral,  but  no  man  can  be." 

"The  President  and  the  Government,"  Page  after- 
ward wrote,  "in  their  insistence  upon  the  moral  quality 
of  neutrality,  missed  the  larger  meaning  of  the  war.  (  It 
is  at  bottom  nothing  but  the  effort  of  the  Berlin  absolute 
monarch  and  his  group  to  impose  their  will  on  as  large  a 
part  of  the  world  as  they  can  overrun^  The  President 
started  out  with  the  idea  that  it  was  a  war  brought  on  by 
rniany  obscure  causes — economic  and  the  like;  and  he 
thus  missed  its  whole  meaning.  We  have  ever  since 
been  dealing  with  the  chips  which  fly  from  the  war  ma- 
chine and  have  missed  the  larger  meaning  of  the  conflict. 
Thus  we  have  failed  to  render  help  to  the  side  of  Liberal- 
ism and  Democracy,  which  are  at  stake  in  the  world." 

Nor  did  Page  think  it  his  duty,  in  his  private  communi- 
cations to  his  Government  and  his  friends,  to  maintain 
that  attitude  of  moral  detachment  which  Mr.  Wilson's 
pronouncement  had  evidently  enjoined  upon  him.  It 
was  not  his  business  to  announce  his  opinions  to  the  world, 
for  he  was  not  the  man  who  determined  the  policy  of  the 
United  States ;  that  was  the  responsibility  of  the  President 
and  his  advisers.  But  an  ambassador  did  have  a  certain 
role  to  perform.  It  was  his  duty  to  collect  information 
and  impressions,  to  discover  what  important  people 
thought  of  the  United  States  and  of  its  policies,  and  to 
send  forward  all  such  data  to  Washington.  According 
to  Page's  theory  of  the  Ambassadorial  office,  he  was  a 
kind  of  listening  post  on  the  front  of  diplomacy,  and  he 
would  have  grievously  failed  had  he  not  done  his  best  to 
keep  headquarters  informed.  He  did  not  regard  it  as 


362       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS  OF  WALTER  H.    PAGE 

"loyalty"  merely  to  forward  only  that  kind  of  material 
which  Washington  apparently  preferred  to  obtain;  with 
a  frankness  which  Mr.  Wilson's  friends  regarded  as  al- 
most ruthless,  Page  reported  what  he  believed  to  be  the 
truth.  That  this  practice  was  displeasing  to  the  powers 
of  Washington  there  is  abundant  evidence.  In  early 
December,  1914,  Colonel  House  was  compelled  to  trans- 
mit a  warning  to  the  American  Ambassador  at  London. 
"The  President  wished  me  to  ask  you  to  please  be  more 
careful  not  to  express  any  unneutral  feeling,  either  by 
word  of  mouth,  or  by  letter  and  not  even  to  the  State 
Department.  He  said  that  both  Mr.  Bryan  and  Mr. 
Lansing  had  remarked  upon  your  leaning  in  that  di- 
rection and  he  thought  that  it  would  materially  lessen 
your  influence.  He  feels  very  strongly  about  this." 

Evidently  Page  did  not  regard  his  frank  descriptions  of 
England  under  war  as  expressing  unneutral  feeling;  at  any 
rate,  as  the  war  went  on,  his  letters,  even  those  which  he 
wrote  to  President  Wilson,  became  more  and  more  out- 
spoken. Page's  resignation  was  always  at  the  Presi- 
dent's disposal;  the  time  came,  as  will  appear,  when  it 
was  offered;  so  long  as  he  occupied  his  post,  however, 
|  nothing  could  turn  him  from  his  determination  to  make 
\  what  he  regarded  as  an  accurate  record  of  events.  This 
policy  of  maintaining  an  outward  impartiality,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  of  bringing  pressure  to  bear  on  Washington 
in  behalf  of  the  Allies,  he  called  "waging  neutrality." 

Such  was  the  mood  in  which  Page  now  prepared  to 
play  his  part  in  what  was  probably  the  greatest  diplo- 
matic drama  in  history.  The  materials  with  which  this 
drama  concerned  itself  were  such  apparently  lifeless  sub- 
jects as  ships  and  cargoes,  learned  discourses  on  such 
abstract  matters  as  the  doctrine  of  continuous  voyage, 
effective  blockade,  and  conditional  contraband;  yet  the 


WAGING  NEUTRALITY  363 

struggle,  which  lasted  for  three  years,  involved  the 
greatest  issue  of  modern  times — nothing  less  than  the  sur- 
vival of  those  conceptions  of  liberty,  government,  and 
society  which  make  the  basis  of  English-speaking  civili- 
zation. To  the  newspaper  reader  of  war  days,  shipping 
difficulties  signified  little  more  than  a  newspaper  head- 
line which  he  hastily  read,  or  a  long  and  involved  lawyer's 
note  which  he  seldom  read  at  all — or,  if  he  did,  practically 
never  understood.  Yet  these  minute  and  neglected  con- 
troversies presented  to  the  American  Nation  the  greatest 
decision  in  its  history.  Once  before,  a  century  ago,  a 
European  struggle  had  laid  before  the  United  States 
practically  the  same  problem.  Great  Britain  fought 
Napoleon,  just  as  it  had  now  been  compelled  to  fight  the 
Hohenzollern,  by  blockade;  such  warfare,  in  the  early 
nineteenth  century,  led  to  retaliations,  just  as  did  the 
maritime  warfare  in  the  recent  conflict,  and  the  United 
States  suffered,  in  1812,  as  in  1914,  from  what  were  re- 
garded as  the  depredations  of  both  sides.  In  Napo- 
leon's days  France  and  Great  Britain,  according  to  the 
international  lawyers,  attacked  American  commerce  in 
illegal  ways;  on  strictly  technical  grounds  this  infant 
nation  had  an  adequate  cause  of  war  against  both  bel- 
ligerents; but  the  ultimate  consequence  of  a  very  con- 
fused situation  was  a  declaration  of  war  against  Great 
Britain.  Though  an  England  which  was  ruled  by  a 
George  III  or  a  Prince  Regent — an  England  of  rotten 
boroughs,  of  an  ignorant  and  oppressed  peasantry,  and  of 
a  social  organization  in  which  caste  was  almost  as  def- 
initely drawn  as  in  an  Oriental  despotism — could  hardly 
appeal  to  the  enthusiastic  democrat  as  embodying  all  the 
ideals  of  his  system,  yet  the  England  of  1800  did  repre- 
sent modern  progress  when  compared  with  the  mediaeval 
autocracy  of  Napoleon.  If  we  take  this  broad  view, 


364       THE    LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

therefore,  we  must  admit  that,  in  1812,  we  fought  on  the 
side  of  darkness  and  injustice  against  the  forces  that  were 
making  for  enlightenment.  The  war  of  1914  had  not 
gone  far  when  the  thinking  American  foresaw  that  it 
would  present  to  the  American  people  precisely  this  same 
problem.  What  would  the  decision  be?  Would  Amer- 
ica repeat  the  experience  of  1812,  or  had  the  teachings  of  a 
century  so  dissipated  hatreds  that  it  would  be  able  to 
exert  its  influence  in  a  way  more  worthy  of  itself  and  more 
helpful  to  the  progress  of  mankind? 

There  was  one  great  difference,  however,  between  the 
position  of  the  United  States  in  1812  and  its  position  in 
1914.  A  century  ago  we  were  a  small  and  feeble  nation, 
of  undeveloped  industries  and  resources  and  of  immature 
character;  our  entrance  into  the  European  conflict,  on 
one  side  or  the  other,  could  have  little  influence  upon  its 
results,  and,  in  fact,  it  influenced  it  scarcely  at  all;  the 
side  we  fought  against  emerged  triumphant.  In  1914, 
we  had  the  greatest  industrial  organization  and  the 
greatest  wealth  of  any  nation  and  the  largest  white 
population  of  any  country  except  Russia;  the  energy  of 
our  people  and  our  national  talent  for  success  had  long 
been  the  marvel  of  foreign  observers.  It  mattered  little 
in  1812  on  which  side  the  United  States  took  its  stand; 
in  1914  such  a  decision  would  inevitably  determine  the 
issue.  Of  all  European  statesmen  there  was  one  man 
who  saw  this  point  with  a  definiteness  which,  in  itself, 
gives  him  a  clear  title  to  fame.  That  was  Sir  Edward 
Grey.  The  time  came  when  a  section  of  the  British 
public  was  prepared  almost  to  stone  the  Foreign  Secretary 
in  the  streets  of  London,  because  they  believed  that  his 
"subservience"  to  American  trade  interests  was  losing 
the  war  for  Great  Britain;  his  tenure  of  office  was  a 
constant  struggle  with  British  naval  and  military  chiefs 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  365 

who  asserted  that  the  Foreign  Office,  in  its  efforts  to 
maintain  harmonious  relations  with  America,  was  ham- 
stringing the  British  fleet,  was  rendering  almost  impo- 
tent its  control  of  the  sea,  and  was  thus  throwing  away 
the  greatest  advantage  which  Great  Britain  possessed 
in  its  life  and  death  struggle.  "Some  blight  has  been 
at  work  in  our  Foreign  Office  for  years,"  said  the  Quar- 
terly Review,  "steadily  undermining  our  mastery  of  the 
sea." 

"The  fleet  is  not  allowed  to  act,"  cried  Lord  Charles 
Beresford  in  Parliament;  the  Foreign  Office  was  con- 
stantly interfering  with  its  operations.  The  word  "trai- 
tor" was  not  infrequently  heard;  there  were  hints  that 
pro-Germanism  was  rampant  and  that  officials  in  the 
Foreign  Office  were  drawing  their  pay  from  the  Kaiser. 
It  was  constantly  charged  that  the  navy  was  bringing  in 
suspicious  cargoes  only  to  have  the  Foreign  Office  order 
their  release.  "I  fight  Sir  Edward  about  stopping  car- 
goes," Page  wrote  to  Colonel  House  in  December,  1914; 
"literally  fight.  He  yields  and  promises  this  or  that. 
This  or  that  doesn't  happen  or  only  half  happens.  I 
know  why.  The  military  ministers  balk  him.  I  in- 
quire through  the  back  door  and  hear  that  the  Admiralty 
and  the  War  Office  of  course  value  American  good-will, 
but  they'll  take  their  chances  of  a  quarrel  with  the  United 
States  rather  than  let  copper  get  to  Germany.  The 
cabinet  has  violent  disagreements.  But  the  military 
men  yield  as  little  as  possible.  It  was  rumoured  the 
other  day  that  the  Prime  Minister  threatened  to  resign; 
and  I  know  that  Kitchener's  sister  told  her  friends,  with 
tears  in  her  eyes,  that  the  cabinet  shamefully  hindered 
her  brother." 

These  criticisms  unquestionably  caused  Sir  Edward 
great  unhappiness,  but  this  did  not  for  a  moment  move 


366       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

him  from  his  course.  His  vision  was  fixed  upon  a  much 
greater  purpose.  Parliamentary  orators  might  rage  be- 
cause the  British  fleet  was  not  permitted  to  make  indis- 
criminate warfare  on  commerce,  but  the  patient  and  far- 
seeing  British  Foreign  Secretary  was  the  man  who  was 
really  trying  to  win  the  war.  He  was  one  of  the  few 
Englishmen  who,  in  August,  1914,  perceived  the  tre- 
mendous extent  of  the  struggle  in  which  Great  Britain 
had  engaged.  He  saw  that  the  English  people  were 
facing  the  greatest  crisis  since  William  of  Normandy,  in 
1066,  subjected  their  island  to  foreign  rule.  Was  England 
to  become  the  "Reichsland"  of  a  European  monarch,  and 
was  the  British  Empire  to  pass  under  the  sway  of  Ger- 
many? Proud  as  Sir  Edward  Grey  was  of  his  country,  he 
was  modest  in  the  presence  of  facts ;  and  one  fact  of  which 
he  early  became  convinced  was  that  Great  Britain  could 
not  win  unless  the  United  States  was  ranged  upon  its 
side.  Here  was  the  country — so  Sir  Edward  reasoned — 
that  contained  the  largest  effective  white  population 
in  the  world;  that  could  train  armies  larger  than  those 
of  any  other  nation;  that  could  make  the  most  muni- 
tions, build  the  largest  number  of  battleships  and  mer- 
chant vessels,  and  raise  food  in  quantities  great  enough  to 
feed  itself  and  Europe  besides.  This  power,  the  Foreign 
Secretary  believed,  could  determine  the  issue  of  the  war. 
If  Great  Britain  secured  American  sympathy  and  sup- 
port, she  would  win;  if  Great  Britain  lost  this  sympa- 
thy and  support,  she  would  lose.  A  foreign  policy  that 
would  estrange  the  United  States  and  perhaps  even  throw 
its  support  to  Germany  would  not  only  lose  the  war  to 
Great  Britain,  but  it  would  be  perhaps  the  blackest  crime 
in  history,  for  it  would  mean  the  collapse  of  that  British- 
American  cooperation,  and  the  destruction  of  those 
British-American  ideals  and  institutions  which  are  the 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  367 

greatest  facts  in  the  modern  world.  This  conviction 
was  the  basis  of  Sir  Edward's  policy  from  the  day  that 
Great  Britain  declared  war.  Whatever  enemies  he  might 
make  in  England,  the  Foreign  Secretary  was  determined 
to  shape  his  course  so  that  the  support  of  the  United 
States  would  be  assured  to  his  country.  A  single  illus- 
tration shows  the  skill  and  wisdom  with  which  he  pursued 
this  great  purpose. 

Perhaps  nothing  in  the  early  days  of  the  war  enraged 
the  British  military  chiefs  more  than  the  fact  that  cotton 
was  permitted  to  go  from  the  United  States  to  Germany. 
That  Germany  was  using  this  cotton  in  the  manufacture 
of  torpedoes  to  sink  British  ships  and  of  projectiles  to  kill 
British  soldiers  in  trenches  was  well  known ;  nor  did  many 
people  deny  that  Great  Britain  had  the  right  to  put 
cotton  on  the  contraband  list.  Yet  Grey,  in  the  pursuit 
of  his  larger  end,  refused  to  take  this  step.  He  knew 
that  the  prosperity  of  the  Southern  States  depended 
exclusively  upon  the  cotton  crop.  He  also  knew  that  the 
South  had  raised  the  1914  crop  with  no  knowledge  that  a 
war  was  impending  and  that  to  deny  the  Southern  plant- 
ers their  usual  access  to  the  German  markets  would  all 
but  ruin  them.  He  believed  that  such  a  ruling  would  im- 
mediately alienate  the  sympathy  of  a  large  section  of  the 
United  States  and  make  our  Southern  Senators  and  Con- 
gressmen enemies  of  Great  Britain.  Sir  Edward  was  also 
completely  informed  of  the  extent  to  which  the  German- 
Americans  and  the  Irish-Americans  were  active  and  he 
was  familiar  with  the  aims  of  American  pacifists.  He  be- 
lieved that  declaring  cotton  contraband  at  this  time  would 
bring  together  in  Congress  the  Southern  Senators  and 
Congressmen,  the  representatives  of  the  Irish  and  the 
German  causes  and  the  pacifists,  and  that  this  combina- 
tion would  exercise  an  influence  that  would  be  disastrous 


368       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

to  Great  Britain.  Two  dangers  constantly  haunted  Sir 
Edward's  mind  at  this  time.  One  was  that  the  enemies  of 
Great  Britain  would  assemble  enough  votes  in  Congress 
to  place  an  embargo  upon  the  shipment  of  munitions  from 
this  country.  Such  an  embargo  might  well  be  fatal  to 
Great  Britain,  for  at  this  time  she  was  importing  muni- 
tions, especially  shells,  in  enormous  quantities  from  the 
United  States.  The  other  was  that  such  pressure  might 
force  the  Government  to  convoy  American  cargoes  with 
American  warships.  Great  Britain  then  could  stop  the 
cargoes  only  by  attacking  our  cruisers,  and  to  attack  a 
cruiser  is  an  act  of  war.  Had  Congress  taken  either 
one  of  these  steps  the  Allies  would  have  lost  the  war 
in  the  spring  of  1915.  At  a  cabinet  meeting  held  to 
consider  this  question,  Sir  Edward  Grey  set  forth  this 
view  and  strongly  advised  that  cotton  should  not  be 
made  contraband  at  that  time.1  The  Cabinet  supported 
him  and  events  justified  the  decision.  Afterward,  in 
Washington,  several  of  the  most  influential  Senators  in- 
formed Sir  Edward  that  this  action  had  averted  a  great 
crisis. 

This  was  the  motive,  which,  as  will  appear  as  the  story 
of  our  relations  with  Great  Britain  progresses,  inspired 
the  Foreign  Secretary  in  all  his  dealings  with  the  United 
States.  His  purpose  was  to  use  the  sea  power  of  Great 
Britain  to  keep  war  materials  and  foodstuffs  out  of  Ger- 
many, but  never  to  go  to  the  length  of  making  an  un- 
bridgeable gulf  between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain.  The  American  Ambassador  to  Great  Britain 
completely  sympathized  with  this  programme.  It  was 
Page's  business  to  protect  the  rights  of  the  United  States, 
just  as  it  was  Grey's  to  protect  the  rights  of  Great  Britain. 


was  in  October,  1914.     In  August,  1915,  when  conditions  had  changed, 
cotton  was  declared  contraband. 


' 'WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  369 

Both  were  vigilant  in  protecting  such  rights,  and  animated 
differences  between  the  two  men  on  this  point  were  not 
infrequent.  Great  Britain  did  many  absurd  and  high- 
handed things  in  intercepting  American  cargoes,  and  Page 
was  always  active  in  "protesting"  when  the  basis  for  the 
protest  actually  existed.  But  on  the  great  overhanging 
issue  the  two  men  were  at  one.  Like  Grey,  Page  be- 
lieved that  there  were  more  important  things  involved  than 
an  occasional  cargo  of  copper  or  of  oil  cake.  The  Amer- 
ican Ambassador  thought  that  the  United  States  should 
protect  its  shipping  interests,  but  that  it  should  realize 
that  maritime  law  was  not  an  exact  science,  that  its 
principles  had  been  modified  by  every  great  conflict  in 
which  the  blockade  had  been  an  effective  agency,  and 
that  the  United  States  itself,  in  the  Civil  War,  had  not 
hesitated  to  make  such  changes  as  the  changed  methods 
of  modern  transportation  had  required.  In  other  words 
he  believed  that  we  could  safeguard  our  rights  in  a  way 
that  would  not  prevent  Great  Britain  from  keeping  war 
materials  and  foodstuffs  out  of  Germany.  And  like  Sir 
Edward  Grey,  Page  was  obliged  to  contend  with  forces  at 
home  which  maintained  a  contrary  view.  In  this  early 
period  Mr.  Bryan  was  nominally  Secretary  of  State,  but 
the  man  who  directed  the  national  policy  in  shipping 
matters  was  Robert  Lansing,  then  counsellor  of  the  De- 
partment. It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  appraise  Mr.  Lansing 
justly,  for  in  his  conduct  of  his  office  there  was  not  the 
slightest  taint  of  malice.  His  methods  were  tactless,  the 
phrasing  of  his  notes  lacked  deftness  and  courtesy,  his 
literary  style  was  crude  and  irritating;  but  Mr.  Lansing 
was  not  anti-British,  he  was  not  pro- German;  he  was  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  a  lawyer.  The  protection  of  Ameri- 
can rights  at  sea  was  to  him  simply  a  "case"  in  which  he 
had  been  retained  as  counsel  for  the  plaintiff.  As  a 


370       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

good  lawyer  it  was  his  business  to  score  as  many  points  as 
possible  for  his  client  and  the  more  weak  joints  he  found 
in  the  enemy's  armour  the  better  did  he  do  his  job.  It  was 
his  duty  to  scan  the  law  books,  to  look  up  the  precedents, 
to  examine  facts,  and  to  prepare  briefs  that  would  be 
unassailable  from  a  technical  standpoint.  To  Mr.  Lan- 
sing this  European  conflict  was  the  opportunity  of  a  life- 
time. He  had  spent  thirty  years  studying  the  intricate 
problems  that  now  became  his  daily  companions.  His 
mind  revelled  in  such  minute  details  as  ultimate  destin- 
ation, the  continuous  voyage  as  applied  to  conditional 
contraband,  the  searching  of  cargoes  upon  the  high  seas, 
belligerent  trading  through  neutral  ports,  war  zones, 
orders  in  council,  and  all  the  other  jargon  of  maritime 
rights  in  time  of  war.  These  topics  engrossed  him  as 
completely  as  the  extension  of  democracy  and  the  signifi- 
cance of  British-American  cooperation  engrossed  all  the 
thoughts  of  Page  and  Grey. 

That  Page  took  this  larger  view  is  evident  from  the 
communications  which  he  now  began  sending  to  the 
President.  One  that  he  wrote  on  October  15,  1915,  is 
especially  to  the  point.  The  date  is  extremely  important; 
so  early  had  Page  formulated  the  standards  that  should 
guide  the  United  States  and  so  early  had  he  begun  his 
work  of  attempting  to  make  President  Wilson  understand 
the  real  nature  of  the  conflict.  The  position  which  Page 
now  assumed  was  one  from  which  he  never  departed. 

To  the  President 

In  this  great  argument  about  shipping  I  cannot  help 
being  alarmed  because  we  are  getting  into  deep  water 
uselessly.  The  Foreign  Office  has  yielded  unquestion- 
ingly  to  all  our  requests  and  has  shown  the  sincerest  wish 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  371 

to  meet  all  our  suggestions,  so  long  as  it  is  not  called 
upon  to  admit  war  materials  into  Germany.  It  will 
not  give  way  to  us  in  that.  We  would  not  yield  it  if  we 
were  in  their  place.  Neither  would  the  Germans.  Eng- 
land will  risk  a  serious  quarrel  or  even  hostilities  with 
us  rather  than  yield.  You  may  look  upon  this  as  the  final 
word. 

Since  the  last  lists  of  contraband  and  conditional  contra- 
band were  published,  such  materials  as  rubber  and  copper 
and  petroleum  have  developed  entirely  new  uses  in  war. 
The  British  simply  will  not  let  Germany  import  them. 
Nothing  that  can  be  used  for  war  purposes  in  Germany 
now  will  be  used  for  anything  else.  Representatives  of 
Spain,  Holland,  and  all  the  Scandinavian  states  agree  that 
they  can  do  nothing  but  acquiesce  and  file  protests  and 
claims,  and  they  admit  that  Great  Britain  has  the  right  to 
revise  the  list  of  contraband.  This  is  not  a  war  in  the 
sense  in  which  we  have  hitherto  used  that  word.  It  is  a 
world-clash  of  systems  of  government,  a  struggle  to  the  v 
extermination  of  English  civilization  or  of  Prussian  mili- 
tary autocracy.  Precedents  have  gone  to  the  scrap  heap. 
We  have  a  new  measure  for  military  and  diplomatic  action. 
Let  us  suppose  that  we  press  for  a  few  rights  to  which  the 
shippers  have  a  theoretical  claim.  The  American  people 
gain  nothing  and  the  result  is  friction  with  this  country ; 
and  that  is  what  a  very  small  minority  of  the  agitators  in 
the  United  States  would  like.  Great  Britain  can  any  day 
close  the  Channel  to  all  shipping  or  can  drive  Holland  to 
the  enemy  and  blockade  her  ports. 

Let  us  take  a  little  farther  view  into  the  future.  If 
Germany  win,  will  it  make  any  difference  what  position 
Great  Britain  took  on  the  Declaration  of  London?  The 
Monroe  Doctrine  will  be  shot  through.  We  shall  have 
to  have  a  great  army  and  a  great  navy.  But  suppose  that 


372      THE  LIFE  AND   LETTERS  OF  WALTER  H.   PAGE 

England  win.  We  shall  then  have  an  ugly  academic  dis- 
pute with  her  because  of  this  controversy.  Moreover, 
we  shall  not  hold  a  good  position  for  helping  to  compose 
the  quarrel  or  for  any  other  service. 

The  present  controversy  seems  here,  where  we  are  close 
to  the  struggle,  academic.  It  seems  to  us  a  petty  matter 
when  it  is  compared  with  the  grave  danger  we  incur  of 
shutting  ourselves  off  from  a  position  to  be  of  some  service 
to  civilization  and  to  the  peace  of  mankind. 

In  Washington  you  seem  to  be  indulging  in  a  more  or 
less  theoretical  discussion.  As  we  see  the  issue  here,  it  is 
a  matter  of  life  and  death  for  English-speaking  civilization. 
It  is  not  a  happy  time  to  raise  controversies  that  can  be 
avoided  or  postponed.  We  gain  nothing,  we  lose  every 
chance  for  useful  cooperation  for  peace.  In  jeopardy  also 
are  our  friendly  relations  with  Great  Britain  in  the  sorest 
need  and  the  greatest  crisis  in  her  history.  I  know  that 
this  is  the  correct  view.  I  recommend  most  earnestly 
that  we  shall  substantially  accept  the  new  Order  in  Coun- 
cil or  acquiesce  in  it  and  reserve  whatever  rights  we  may 
have.  I  recommend  prompt  information  be  sent  to  the 
British  Government  of  such  action.  I  should  like  to  in- 
form Grey  that  this  is  our  decision. 

So  far  as  our  neutrality  obligations  are  concerned,  I  do 
not  believe  that  they  require  us  to  demand  that  Great 
Britain  should  adopt  for  our  benefit  the  Declaration  of 
/  London.  Great  Britain  has  never  ratified  it,  nor  have 
any  other  nations  except  the  United  States.  In  its 
application  to  the  situation  presented  by  this  war  it  is 
altogether  to  the  advantage  of  Germany. 

I  have  delayed  to  write  you  this  way  too  long.  I  have 
feared  that  I  might  possibly  seem  to  be  influenced  by 
sympathy  with  England  and  by  the  atmosphere  here. 
But  I  write  of  course  solely  with  reference  to  our  own 


.. 


WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  373 


country's  interest  and  its  position  after  the  reorganization 
of  Europe. 

Anderson1  and  Laughlin2  agree  with  me  emphatically. 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

ii 

The  immediate  cause  of  this  protest  was,  as  its  con- 
text shows,  the  fact  that  the  State  Department  was 
insisting  that  Great  Britain  should  adopt  the  Declaration 
of  London  as  a  code  of  law  for  regulating  its  warfare  on 
German  shipping.  Hostilities  had  hardly  started  when 
Mr.  Bryan  made  this  proposal;  his  telegram  on  this  sub- 
ject is  dated  August  7,  1914.  "You  will  further  state,'* 
said  Mr.  Bryan,  "that  this  Government  believes  that  the 
acceptance  of  these  laws  by  the  belligerents  would  pre- 
vent grave  misunderstandings  which  may  arise  as  to  the 
relations  between  belligerents  and  neutrals.  It  therefore 
hopes  that  this  inquiry  may  receive  favourable  consider- 
ation." At  the  same  time  Germany  and  the  other  bel- 
ligerents were  asked  to  adopt  this  Declaration. 

The  communication  was  thus  more  than  a  suggestion; 
it  was  a  recommendation  that  was  strongly  urged.  Ac- 
cording to  Page  this  telegram  was  the  first  great  mistake 
the  American  Government  made  in  its  relations  with 
Great  Britain.  In  September,  1916,  the  Ambassador 
submitted  to  President  Wilson  a  memorandum  which  he 
called  "Rough  notes  toward  an  explanation  of  the  British 
feeling  toward  the  United  States."  "Of  recent  years," 
he  said,  "and  particularly  during  the  first  year  of  the 
present  Administration,  the  British  feeling  toward  the 
United  States  was  most  friendly  and  cordial.  About 

lMr.  Chandler  P.  Anderson,  of  New  York,  at  this  time  advising  the  American 
Embassy  on  questions  of  international  law. 

JMr.  Irwin  Laughlin,  first  secretary  of  the  Embassy. 


374       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

the  time  of  the  repeal  of  the  tolls  clause  in  the  Panama  Act, 
the  admiration  and  friendliness  of  the  whole  British 
public  (governmental  and  private)  reached  the  highest 
point  in  our  history.  In  considering  the  change  that  has 
taken  place  since,  it  is  well  to  bear  this  cordiality  in  mind 
as  a  starting  point.  When  the  war  came  on  there  was  at 
first  nothing  to  change  this  attitude.  The  hysterical  hope 
of  many  persons  that  our  Government  might  protest 
against  the  German  invasion  of  Belgium  caused  some 
feeling  of  disappointment,  but  thinking  men  did  not  share 
it;  and,  if  this  had  been  the  sole  cause  of  criticism  of  us, 
the  criticism  would  have  died  out.  The  unusually  high 
regard  in  which  the  President — and  hence  our  Govern- 
ment— was  then  held  was  to  a  degree  new.  The  British 
had  for  many  years  held  the  people  of  the  United  States 
in  high  esteem:  they  had  not,  as  a  rule,  so  favourably  re- 
garded the  Government  at  Washington,  especially  in  its 
conduct  of  foreign  relations.  They  had  long  regarded 
our  Government  as  ignorant  of  European  affairs  and  ama- 
teurish in  its  cockiness.  When  I  first  got  to  London  I 
found  evidence  of  this  feeling,  even  in  the  most  friendly 
atmosphere  that  surrounded  us.  Mr.  Bryan  was  looked 
on  as  a  joke.  They  forgot  him — rather,  they  never  took 
serious  notice  of  him.  But,  when  the  Panama  tolls  inci- 
dent was  closed,  they  regarded  the  President  as  his  own 
Foreign  Secretary;  and  thus  our  Government  as  well  as 
our  Nation  came  into  this  high  measure  of  esteem. 

"The  war  began.  We,  of  course,  took  a  neutral  atti- 
tude, wholly  to  their  satisfaction.  But  we  at  once  inter- 
fered— or  tried  to  interfere — by  insisting  on  the  Declara- 
tion of  London,  which  no  Great  Power  but  the  United 
States  (I  think)  had  ratified  and  which  the  British  House 
of  Lords  had  distinctly  rejected.  That  Declaration 
would  probably  have  given  a  victory  to  Germany  if  the 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  375 

Allies  had  adopted  it.  In  spite  of  our  neutrality  we  in- 
sisted vigorously  on  its  adoption  and  aroused  a  distrust  in 
our  judgment.  Thus  we  started  in  wrong,  so  far  as  the 
British  Government  is  concerned." 

The  rules  of  maritime  warfare  which  the  American  State 
Department  so  disastrously  insisted  upon  were  the  direct 
outcome  of  the  Hague  Conference  of  1907.  That  as- 
sembly of  the  nations  recognized,  what  had  long  been  a 
palpable  fact,  that  the  utmost  confusion  existed  in  the 
operations  of  warring  powers  upon  the  high  seas.  About 
the  fundamental  principle  that  a  belligerent  had  the  right, 
if  it  had  the  power,  to  keep  certain  materials  of  commerce 
from  reaching  its  enemy,  there  was  no  dispute.  But  as  to 
the  particular  articles  which  it  could  legally  exclude  there 
were  as  many  different  ideas  as  there  were  nations. 
That  the  blockade,  a  term  which  means  the  complete 
exclusion  of  cargoes  and  ships  from  an  enemy's  ports, 
was  a  legitimate  means  of  warfare,  was  also  an  accepted 
fact,  but  as  to  the  precise  means  in  which  the  blockade 
could  be  enforced  there  was  the  widest  difference  of  opin- 
ion. The  Hague  Conference  provided  that  an  attempt 
should  be  made  to  codify  these  laws  into  a  fixed  system, 
and  the  representatives  of  the  nations  met  in  London  in 
1908,  under  the  presidency  of  the  Earl  of  Desart,  for  this 
purpose.  The  outcome  of  their  two  months'  deliberations 
was  that  document  of  seven  chapters  and  seventy  articles 
which  has  ever  since  been  known  as  the  Declaration  of 
London.  Here  at  last  was  the  thing  for  which  the  world 
had  been  waiting  so  long — a  complete  system  of  maritime 
law  for  the  regulation  of  belligerents  and  the  protection 
of  neutrals,  which  would  be  definitely  binding  upon  all 
nations  because  all  nations  were  expected  to  ratify  it. 

But  the  work  of  all  these  learned  gentlemen  was  thrown 
away.  The  United  States  was  the  only  party  to  the  nego- 


376       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

tiations  that  put  the  stamp  of  approval  upon  its  labours. 
All  other  nations  declined  to  commit  themselves.  In 
Great  Britain  the  Declaration  had  an  especially  interesting 
course.  In  that  country  it  became  a  football  of  party 
politics.  The  Liberal  Government  was  at  first  inclined  to 
look  upon  it  favourably ;  the  Liberal  House  of  Commons 
actually  ratified  it.  It  soon  became  apparent,  however, 
that  this  vote  did  not  represent  the  opinion  of  the  British 
public.  In  fact,  few  measures  have  ever  aroused  such 
hostility  as  this  Declaration,  once  its  details  became 
known.  For  more  than  a  year  the  hubbub  against  it 
filled  the  daily  press,  the  magazines,  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament  and  the  hustings;  Rudyard  Kipling  even  wrote 
a  poem  denouncing  it.  The  adoption  of  the  Declaration, 
these  critics  asserted,  would  destroy  the  usefulness  of  the 
British  fleet.  In  many  quarters  it  was  denounced  as  a 
German  plot — as  merely  a  part  of  the  preparations  which 
Germany  was  making  for  world  conquest.  The  fact  is 
that  the  Declaration  could  not  successfully  stand  the 
analysis  to  which  it  was  now  mercilessly  submitted;  the 
House  of  Lords  rejected  it,  and  this  action  met  with  more 
approbation  than  had  for  years  been  accorded  the  legis- 
lative pronouncements  of  that  chamber.  The  Liberal 
House  of  Commons  was  not  in  the  least  dissatisfied  with 
this  conclusion,  for  it  realized  that  it  had  made  a  mistake 
and  it  was  only  too  happy  to  be  permitted  to  forget  it. 

When  the  war  broke  out  there  was  therefore  no  single 
aspect  of  maritime  law  which  was  quite  so  odious  as  the 
Declaration  of  London.  Great  Britain  realized  that  she 
could  never  win  unless  her  fleet  were  permitted  to  keep 
contraband  out  of  Germany  and,  if  necessary,  completely 
to  blockade  that  country.  The  two  greatest  conflicts  of 
the  nineteenth  century  were  the  European  struggle  with 
Napoleon  and  the  American  Civil  War.  In  both  the 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  377 

blockade  had  been  the  decisive  element,  and  that  this  great 
agency  would  similarly  determine  events  in  this  even 
greater  struggle  was  apparent.  What  enraged  the  British 
public  against  any  suggestion  of  the  Declaration  was  that 
it  practically  deprived  Great  Britain  of  this  indispensable ' 
means  of  weakening  the  enemy.  In  this  Declaration  were 
drawn  up  lists  of  contraband,  non-contraband,  and  con- 
ditional contraband,  and  all  of  these,  in  English  eyes, 
worked  to  the  advantage  of  Germany  and  against  the  ad- 
vantage of  Great  Britain.  How  absurd  this  classification 
was  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  airplanes  were  not  listed 
as  absolute  contraband  of  war.  Germany's  difficulty  in 
getting  copper  was  one  of  the  causes  of  her  collapse;  yet 
the  Declaration  put  copper  for  ever  on  the  non-contraband 
list;  had  this  new  code  been  adopted,  Germany  could  have 
imported  enormous  quantities  from  this  country,  instead 
of  being  compelled  to  reinforce  her  scanty  supply  by 
robbing  housewives  of  their  kitchen  utensils,  buildings  of 
their  hardware,  and  church  steeples  of  their  bells.  Ger- 
many's constant  scramble  for  rubber  formed  a  diverting 
episode  in  the  struggle;  there  are  indeed  few  things  so 
indispensable  in  modern  warfare;  yet  the  Declaration  in- 
eluded  rubber  among  the  innocent  articles  and  thus  opened 
up  to  Germany  the  world's  supply.  But  the  most  serious 
matter  was  that  the  Declaration  would  have  prevented 
Great  Britain  from  keeping  foodstuffs  out  of  the  Father- 
land. 

When  Mr.  Bryan,  therefore,  blandly  asked  Great  Britain 
to  accept  the  Declaration  as  its  code  of  maritime  warfare, 
he  was  asking  that  country  to  accept  a  document  which 
Great  Britain,  in  peace  time,  had  repudiated  and  which 
would,  in  all  probability,  have  caused  that  country  to 
lose  the  war.  The  substance  of  this  request  was  bad 
enough,  but  the  language  in  which  it  was  phrased  made 


378       THE    LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

matters  much  worse.  It  appears  that  only  the  inter- 
vention of  Colonel  House  prevented  the  whole  thing  from 
becoming  a  tragedy. 

From  Edward  M.  House 

115  East  53rd  Street, 

New  York  City. 

October  3,  1914. 
His  EXCELLENCY, 

The  American  Ambassador,  London,  England. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

.  .  .  I  have  just  returned  from  Washington  where 
I  was  with  the  President  for  nearly  four  days.  He  is 
looking  well  and  is  well.  Sometimes  his  spirits  droop,  but 
then,  again,  he  is  his  normal  self. 

I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  there  at  a  time  when  the 
discussion  of  the  Declaration  of  London  had  reached  a 
critical  stage.  Bryan  was  away  and  Lansing,  who  had 
not  mentioned  the  matter  to  Sir  Cecil,1  prepared  a  long 
communication  to  you  which  he  sent  to  the  President 
for  approval.  The  President  and  I  went  over  it  and  I 
strongly  urged  not  sending  it  until  I  could  have  a  confer- 
ence with  Sir  Cecil.  I  had  this  conference  the  next  day 
without  the  knowledge  of  any  one  excepting  the  President, 
and  had  another  the  day  following.  Sir  Cecil  told  me  that 
if  the  dispatch  had  gone  to  you  as  written  and  you  had 
shown  it  to  Sir  Edward  Grey,  it  would  almost  have  been 
a  declaration  of  war;  and  that  if,  by  any  chance,  the  news- 
papers had  got  hold  of  it  as  they  so  often  get  things  from 
our  State  Department,  the  greatest  panic  would  have  pre- 
vailed. He  said  it  would  have  been  the  Venezuela  inci- 
dent magnified  by  present  conditions. 

At  the  President's  suggestion,  Lansing  then  prepared  a 

JSir  Cecil  Spring  Rice,  British  Ambassador  at  Washington. 


.. 


WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  379 


cablegram  to  you.  This,  too,  was  objectionable  and  the 
President  and  I  together  softened  it  down  into  the  one  you 
received. 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

In  justice  to  Mr.  Lansing,  a  passage  in  a  later  letter  of 
Colonel  House  must  be  quoted:  "It  seems  that  Lansing 
did  not  write  the  particular  dispatch  to  you  that  was  ob- 
jected to.  Someone  else  prepared  it  and  Lansing  rather 
too  hastily  submitted  it  to  the  President,  with  the  result 
you  know." 

This  suppressed  communication  is  probably  for  ever 
lost,  but  its  tenor  may  perhaps  be  gathered  from  instruc- 
tions which  were  actually  sent  to  the  Ambassador  about 
this  time.  After  eighteen  typewritten  pages  of  not  too 
urbanely  expressed  discussion  of  the  Declaration  of  Lon- 
don and  the  general  subject  of  contraband,  Page  was  in- 
structed to  call  the  British  Government's  attention  to  the 
consequences  which  followed  shipping  troubles  in  previous 
times.  It  is  hard  to  construe  this  in  any  other  way  than 
as  a  threat  to  Great  Britain  of  a  repetition  of  1812: 

Confidential.  You  will  not  fail  to  impress  upon  His 
Excellency1  the  gravity  of  the  issues  which  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  Order  in  Council  seems  to  presage,  and  say  to 
him  in  substance  as  follows: 

It  is  a  matter  of  grave  concern  to  this  Government  that 
the  particular  conditions  of  this  unfortunate  war  should 
be  considered  by  His  Britannic  Majesty's  Government  to 
be  such  as  to  justify  them  in  advancing  doctrines  and  ad- 
vocating practices  which  in  the  past  aroused  strong  op- 
position on  the  part  of  the  Government  of  the  United 

^ir  Edward  Grey. 


380       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

States,  and  bitter  feeling  among  the  American  people. 
This  Government  feels  bound  to  express  the  fear,  though 
it  does  so  reluctantly,  that  the  publicity,  which  must  be 
given  to  the  rules  which  His  Majesty's  Government  an- 
nounce that  they  intend  to  enforce,  will  awaken  memories 
of  controversies,  which  it  is  the  earnest  desire  of  the  United 
States  to  forget  or  to  pass  over  in  silence.  .  .  . 

Germany,  of  course,  promptly  accepted  the  Decla- 
ration, for  the  suggestion  fitted  in  perfectly  with  her  pro- 
\/  gramme;  but  Great  Britain  was  not  so  acquiescent. 
Four  times  was  Page  instructed  to  ask  the  British  Govern- 
ment to  accede  unconditionally,  and  four  times  did  the 
Foreign  Office  refuse.  Page  was  in  despair.  In  the  fol- 
lowing letter  he  notified  Colonel  House  that  if  he  were  in- 
structed again  to  move  in  this  matter  he  would  resign  his 
ambassadorship. 

To  Edward  M.  House 

American  Embassy,  London, 

October  22,  1914. 
DEAR  HOUSE: 

This  is  about  the  United  States  and  England.  Let's 
get  that  settled  before  we  try  our  hands  at  making  peace 
in  Europe. 

One  of  our  greatest  assets  is  the  friendship  of  Great 
Britain,  and  our  friendship  is  a  still  bigger  asset  for  her, 
and  she  knows  it  and  values  it.  Now,  if  either  country 
should  be  damfool  enough  to  throw  this  away  because  old 
Stone1  roars  in  the  Senate  about  something  that  hasn't 
happened,  then  this  crazy  world  would  be  completely  mad 

1  Senator  William  J.  Stone,  perhaps  the  leading  spokesman  of  the  pro-German 
cause  in  the  United  States  Senate.     Senator  Stone  represented  Missouri,  a  state 
a  large  German-American  element. 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  381 

all  round,  and  there  would  be  no  good-will  left  on  earth  at 
all. 

The  case  is  plain  enough  to  me.  England  is  going  to 
keep  war-materials  out  of  Germany  as  far  as  she  can. 
We'd  do  it  in  her  place.  Germany  would  do  it.  Any 
nation  would  do  it.  That's  all  she  has  declared  her  in- 
tention of  doing.  And,  if  she  be  let  alone,  she'll  do  it  in  a 
way  to  give  us  the  very  least  annoyance  possible;  for  she'll 
go  any  length  to  keep  our  friendship  and  good  will.  And 
she  has  not  confiscated  a  single  one  of  our  cargoes  even  of 
unconditional  contraband.  She  has  stopped  some  of  them 
and  bought  them  herself,  but  confiscated  not  one.  All 
right;  what  do  we  do?  We  set  out  on  a  comprehensive 
plan  to  regulate  the  naval  warfare  of  the  world  and  we  up 
and  ask  'em  all,  "Now,  boys,  all  be  good,  damn  you,  and 
agree  to  the  Declaration  of  London." 

"Yah,"  says  Germany,  "if  England  will." 
Now  Germany  isn't  engaged  in  naval  warfare  to  count, 
and  she  never  even  paid  the  slightest  attention  to  the 
Declaration  all  these  years.  But  she  saw  that  it  would 
hinder  England  and  help  her  now,  by  forbidding  England 
to  stop  certain  very  important  war  materials  from  reaching 
Germany.  "Yah,"  said  Germany.  But  England  said 
that  her  Parliament  had  rejected  the  Declaration  in  times 
of  peace  and  that  she  could  now  hardly  be  expected  to 
adopt  it  in  the  face  of  this  Parliamentary  rejection.  But, 
to  please  us,  she  agreed  to  adopt  it  with  only  two 
changes. 

Then  Lansing  to  the  bat: 

"No,  no,"  says  Lansing,  "you've  got  to  adopt  it  all." 
Four  tunes  he's  made  me  ask  for  its  adoption,  the  last 
time  coupled  with  a  proposition  that  if  England  would 
adopt  it,  she  might  issue  a  subsequent  proclamation  say- 
ing that,  since  the  Declaration  is  contradictory,  she  will 


382       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

construe  it  her  own  way,  and  the  United  States  will  raise 
no  objection! 

Then  he  sends  eighteen  pages  of  fine-spun  legal  argu- 
ments (not  all  sound  by  any  means)  against  the  sections 
of  the  English  proclamations  that  have  been  put  forth, 
giving  them  a  strained  and  unfriendly  interpretation. 

In  a  word,  England  has  acted  in  a  friendly  way  to  us 
and  will  so  act,  if  we  allow  her.  But  Lansing,  instead  of 
trusting  to  her  good  faith  and  reserving  all  our  rights 
under  international  law  and  usage,  imagines  that  he  can 
force  her  to  agree  to  a  code  that  the  Germans  now  agree 
to  because,  in  Germany's  present  predicament,  it  will  be 
especially  advantageous  to  Germany.  Instead  of  trust- 
ing her,  he  assumes  that  she  means  to  do  wrong  and  pro- 
ceeds to  try  to  bind  her  in  advance.  He  hauls  her  up  and 
tries  her  in  court — that's  his  tone. 

Now  the  relations  that  I  have  established  with  Sir 
Edward  Grey  have  been  built  up  on  frankness,  fairness 
and  friendship.  I  can't  have  relations  of  any  other  sort 
nor  can  England  and  the  United  States  have  relations  of 
any  other  sort.  This  is  the  place  we've  got  to  now.  Lan- 
sing seems  to  assume  that  the  way  to  an  amicable  agree- 
ment is  through  an  angry  controversy. 

Lansing's  method  is  the  trouble.  He  treats  Great 
Britain,  to  start  with,  as  if  she  were  a  criminal  and  an  op- 
ponent. That's  the  best  way  I  know  to  cause  trouble  to 
American  shipping  and  to  bring  back  the  good  old  days  of 
mutual  hatred  and  distrust  for  a  generation  or  two.  If 
that  isn't  playing  into  the  hands  of  the  Germans,  what 
would  be?  And  where's  the  "neutrality"  of  this  kind  of 
action? 

See  here:  If  we  let  England  go  on,  we  can  throw  the 
whole  responsibility  on  her  and  reserve  all  our  rights  under 
international  law  and  usage  and  claim  damages  (and  get 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  383 

'em)  for  every  act  of  injury,  if  acts  of  injury  occur;  and 
we  can  keep  her  friendship  and  good-will.  Every  other 
neutral  nation  is  doing  that.  Or  we  can  insist  on  regulat- 
ing all  naval  warfare  and  have  a  quarrel  and  refer  it  to  a 
Bryan-Peace-Treaty  Commission  and  claim  at  most  the 
selfsame  damages  with  a  less  chance  to  get  'em.  We  can 
get  damages  without  a  quarrel;  or  we  can  have  a  quarrel 
and  probably  get  damages.  Now,  why,  in  God's  name, 
should  we  provoke  a  quarrel? 

The  curse  of  the  world  is  little  men  who  for  an  imagined 
small  temporary  advantage  throw  away  the  long  growth 
of  good-will  nurtured  by  wise  and  patient  men  and  who 
cannot  see  the  lasting  and  far  greater  future  evil  they  do. 
Of  all  the  years  since  1776  this  great  war-year  is  the  worst 
to  break  the  100  years  of  our  peace,  or  even  to  ruffle  it. 
I  pray  you,  good  friend,  get  us  out  of  these  incompetent 
lawyer-hands. 

Now  about  the  peace  of  Europe.  Nothing  can  yet  be 
done,  perhaps  nothing  now  can  ever  be  done  by  us.  The 
Foreign  Office  doubts  our  wisdom  and  prudence  since 
Lansing  came  into  action.  The  whole  atmosphere  is 
changing.  One  more  such  move  and  they  will  conclude 
that  Dernburg  and  Bernstorff  have  seduced  us — without 
our  knowing  it,  to  be  sure;  but  their  confidence  in  our 
judgment  will  be  gone.  God  knows  I  have  tried  to  keep 
this  confidence  intact  and  our  good  friendship  secure. 
But  I  have  begun  to  get  despondent  over  the  outlook  since 
the  President  telegraphed  me  that  Lansing's  proposal 
would  settle  the  matter.  I  still  believe  he  did  not  under- 
stand it — he  couldn't  have  done  so.  Else  he  could  not 
have  approved  it.  But  that  tied  my  hands.  If  Lansing 
again  brings  up  the  Declaration  of  London — after  four 
flat  and  reasonable  rejections — I  shall  resign.  I  will  not 
be  the  instrument  of  a  perfectly  gratuitous  and  ineffective 


384       THE  LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER  H.    PAGE 

insult  to  this  patient  and  fair  and  friendly  government  and 
people  who  in  my  time  have  done  us  many  kindnesses  and 
never  an  injury  but  Garden,1  and  who  sincerely  try  now 
to  meet  our  wishes.  It  would  be  too  asinine  an  act  ever 
to  merit  forgiveness  or  ever  to  be  forgotten.  I  should 
blame  myself  the  rest  of  my  life.  It  would  grieve  Sir 
Edward  more  than  anything  except  this  war.  It  would 
knock  the  management  of  foreign  affairs  by  this  Adminis- 
tration into  the  region  of  sheer  idiocy.  I'm  afraid  any 
peace  talk  from  us,  as  it  is,  would  merely  be  whistling  down 
the  wind.  If  we  break  with  England — not  on  any  case  or 
act  of  violence  to  our  shipping — but  on  a  useless  discussion, 
in  advance,  of  general  principles  of  conduct  during  the 
war — just  for  a  discussion — we've  needlessly  thrown  away 
our  great  chance  to  be  of  some  service  to  this  world  gone 
mad.  If  Lansing  isn't  stopped,  that's  what  he  will  do. 
Why  doesn't  the  President  see  Spring  Rice?  Why  don't 
you  take  him  to  see  him? 

Good  night,  my  good  friend.  I  still  have  hope  that  the 
President  himself  will  take  this  in  hand. 

Yours  always, 

W.  H.  P. 

The  letters  and  the  cablegrams  which  Page  was  sending 
to  Colonel  House  and  the  State  Department  at  this  time 
evidently  ended  the  matter.  By  the  middle  of  October 
the  two  nations  were  fairly  deadlocked.  Sir  Edward 
Grey's  reply  to  the  American  proposal  had  been  an  ac- 
ceptance of  the  Declaration  of  London  with  certain 
modifications.  For  the  list  of  contraband  in  the  Declar- 
ation he  had  submitted  the  list  already  adopted  by  Great 
Britain  in  its  Order  in  Council,  and  he  had  also  rejected 
that  article  which  made  it  impossible  for  Great  Britain 

'See  Chapter  VII. 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  385 

to  apply  the  doctrine  of  "continuous  voyage"  to  condi- 
tional contraband.  The  modified  acceptance,  declared 
Mr.  Lansing,  was  a  practical  rejection— as  of  course  it 
was,  and  as  it  was  intended  to  be.  So  the  situation  re- 
mained for  several  exciting  weeks,  the  State  Department 
insisting  on  the  Declaration  in  full,  precisely  as  the  legal 
luminaries  had  published  it  five  years  before,  the  For- 
eign Office  courteously  but  inflexibly  refusing  to  accede. 
Only  the  cordial  personal  relations  which  prevailed  be- 
tween Grey  and  Page  prevented  the  crisis  from  producing 
the  most  disastrous  results.  Finally,  on  October  17th, 
Page  proposed  by  cable  an  arrangement  which  he  hoped 
would  settle  the  matter.  This  was  that  the  Bang  should 
issue  a  proclamation  accepting  the  Declaration  with  prac- 
tically the  modifications  suggested  above,  and  that  a  new 
Order  in  Council  should  be  issued  containing  a  new  list  of 
contraband.  Sir  Edward  Grey  was  not  to  ask  the  Amer- 
ican Government  to  accept  this  proclamation ;  all  that  he 
asked  was  that  Washington  should  offer  no  objections  to 
it.  It  was  proposed  that  the  United  States  at  the  same 
time  should  publish  a  note  withdrawing  its  suggestion 
for  the  adoption  of  the  Declaration,  and  explaining  that 
it  proposed  to  rest  the  rights  of  its  citizens  upon  the  exist- 
ing rules  of  international  law  and  the  treaties  of  the  United 
States.  This  solution  was  accepted.  It  was  a  defeat 
for  Mr.  Lansing,  of  course,  but  he  had  no  alternative. 
The  relief  that  Page  felt  is  shown  in  the  following  memo- 
randum, written  soon  after  the  tension  had  ceased: 

"That  insistence  on  the  Declaration  entire  came  near 
to  upsetting  the  whole  kettle  of  fish.  It  put  on  me  the 
task  of  insisting  on  a  general  code — at  a  time  when  the 
fiercest  war  in  history  was  every  day  becoming  fiercer  and 
more  desperate — which  would  have  prevented  the  British 


386      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

from  putting  on  their  contraband  list  several  of  the  most 
important  war  materials — accompanied  by  a  proposal 
that  would  have  angered  every  neutral  nation  through 
which  supplies  can  possibly  reach  Germany  and  prevented 
this  Government  from  making  friendly  working  arrange- 
ments with  them;  and,  after  Sir  Edward  Grey  had  flatly 
declined  for  these  reasons,  I  had  to  continue  to  insist.  I 
confess  it  did  look  as  if  we  were  determined  to  dictate  to 
him  how  he  should  conduct  the  war — and  in  a  way  that 
distinctly  favoured  the  Germans. 

"I  presented  every  insistence;  for  I  should,  of  course, 
not  have  been  excusable  if  I  had  failed  in  any  case  vigor- 
ously to  carry  out  my  instructions.  But  every  time  I 
plainly  saw  matters  getting  worse  and  worse;  and  I  should 
have  failed  of  my  duty  also  if  I  had  not  so  informed  the 
President  and  the  Department.  I  can  conceive  of  no 
more  awkward  situation  for  an  Ambassador  or  for  any 
other  man  under  Heaven.  I  turned  the  whole  thing  over 
in  my  mind  backward  and  forward  a  hundred  times  every 
day.  For  the  first  tune  in  this  stress  and  strain,  I  lost 
my  appetite  and  digestion  and  did  not  know  the  day  of 
the  week  nor  what  month  it  was — seeing  the  two  govern- 
ments rushing  toward  a  very  serious  clash,  which  would 
have  made  my  mission  a  failure  and  done  the  Adminis- 
tration much  hurt,  and  have  sowed  the  seeds  of  bitterness 
for  generations  to  come. 

"One  day  I  said  to  Anderson  (whose  assistance  is  in 
many  ways  invaluable) :  '  Of  course  nobody  is  infallible — 
least  of  all  we.  Is  it  possible  that  we  are  mistaken?  You 
and  Laughlin  and  I,  who  are  close  to  it  all,  are  absolutely 
agreed.  But  may  there  not  be  some  important  element  in 
the  problem  that  we  do  not  see?  Summon  and  nurse 
every  doubt  that  you  can  possibly  muster  up  of  the  cor- 
rectness of  our  view,  put  yourself  on  the  defensive,  recall 


WAGING   NEUTRALITY  387 

every  mood  you  may  have  had  of  the  slightest  hesitation, 
and  tell  me  to-morrow  of  every  possible  weak  place  there 
may  be  in  our  judgment  and  conclusions.'  The  next  day 
Anderson  handed  me  seventeen  reasons  why  it  was  unwise 
to  persist  in  this  demand  for  the  adoption  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  London.  Laughlin  gave  a  similar  opinion.  I 
swear  I  spent  the  night  in  searching  every  nook  and  corner 
of  my  mind  and  I  was  of  the  same  opinion  the  next  morn- 
ing. There  was  nothing  to  do  then  but  the  most  unwel- 
come double  duty:  (1)  Of  continuing  to  carry  out  instruc- 
tions, at  every  step  making  a  bad  situation  worse  and 
running  the  risk  of  a  rupture  (which  would  be  the  only 
great  crime  that  now  remains  uncommitted  in  the  world) ; 
and  (2)  of  trying  to  persuade  our  own  Government  that 
this  method  was  the  wrong  method  to  pursue.  I  know  it 
is  not  my  business  to  make  policies,  but  I  conceive  it  to  be 
my  business  to  report  when  they  fail  or  succeed.  Now 
if  I  were  commanded  to  look  throughout  the  whole  uni- 
verse for  the  most  unwelcome  task  a  man  may  have,  I 
think  I  should  select  this.  But,  after  all,  a  man  has 
nothing  but  his  own  best  judgment  to  guide  him;  and,  if 
he  follow  that  and  fail — that's  all  he  can  do.  I  do  rever- 
ently thank  God  that  we  gave  up  that  contention.  We 
may  have  trouble  yet,  doubtless  we  shall,  but  it  will  not 
be  trouble  of  our  own  making,  as  that  was. 

"Tyrrell1  came  into  the  reception  room  at  the  Foreign 
Office  the  day  after  our  withdrawal,  while  I  was  waiting 
to  see  Sir  Edward  Grey,  and  he  said:  *I  wish  to  tell  you 
personally — just  privately  between  you  and  me — how  in- 
finite a  relief  it  is  to  us  all  that  your  Government  has  with- 
drawn that  demand.  We  couldn't  accept  it;  our  refusal 
was  not  stubborn  nor  pig-headed :  it  was  a  physical  neces- 
sity in  order  to  carry  on  the  war  with  any  hope  of  success.' 

1Private  secretary  to  Sir  Edward  Grey. 


388       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Then,  as  I  was  going  out,  he  volunteered  this  remark:  *I 
make  this  guess — that  that  programme  was  not  the  work 
of  the  President  but  of  some  international  prize  court 
enthusiast  (I  don't  know  who)  who  had  failed  to  secure 
the  adoption  of  the  Declaration  when  parliaments  and 
governments  could  discuss  it  at  leisure  and  who  hoped  to 
jam  it  through  under  the  pressure  of  war  and  thus  get 
his  prize  court  international.'  I  made  no  answer  for 
several  reasons,  one  of  which  is,  I  do  not  know  whose  pro- 
gramme it  was.  All  that  I  know  is  that  I  have  here,  on 
my  desk  at  my  house,  a  locked  dispatch  book  half  full  of 
telegrams  and  letters  insisting  on  it,  which  I  do  not  wish 
(now  at  least)  to  put  in  the  Embassy  files,  and  the  sight 
of  which  brings  the  shuddering  memory  of  the  worst 
nightmare  I  have  ever  suffered. 

"Now  we  can  go  on,  without  being  a  party  to  any  gen- 
eral programme,  but  in  an  independent  position  vigorously 
stand  up  for  every  right  and  privilege  under  law  and  usage 
and  treaties;  and  we  have  here  a  government  that  we  can 
deal  with  frankly  and  not  (I  hope)  in  a  mood  to  suspect  us 
of  wishing  to  put  it  at  a  disadvantage  for  the  sake  of  a 
general  code  or  doctrine.  A  land  and  naval  and  air  and 
submarine  battle  (the  greatest  battle  in  the  history  of  the 
belligerent  race  of  man)  within  75  miles  of  the  coast  of 
England,  which  hasn't  been  invaded  since  1066  and  is  now 
in  its  greatest  danger  since  that  time;  and  this  is  no  tune 
I  fear,  to  force  a  great  body  of  doctrine  on  Great  Britain. 
God  knows  I'm  afraid  some  American  boat  will  run  on  a 
mine  somewhere  in  the  Channel  or  the  North  Sea. 
There's  war  there  as  there  is  on  land  in  Germany.  No- 
body tries  to  get  goods  through  on  land  on  the  continent, 
and  they  make  no  complaints  that  commerce  is  stopped. 
Everybody  tries  to  ply  the  Channel  and  the  North  Sea 
as  usual,  both  of  which  have  German  and  English  mines 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  389 

and  torpedo  craft  and  submarines  almost  as  thick  as 
batteries  along  the  hostile  camps  on  land.  The  British 
Government  (which  now  issues  marine  insurance)  will  not 
insure  a  British  boat  to  carry  food  to  Holland  en  route  to 
the  starving  Belgians;  and  I  hear  that  no  government 
and  no  insurance  company  will  write  insurance  for  any- 
thing going  across  the  North  Sea.  I  wonder  if  the  extent 
and  ferocity  and  danger  of  this  war  are  fully  realized  in 
the  United  States? 

"There  is  no  chance  yet  effectively  to  talk  of  peace.1 
The  British  believe  that  their  civilization  and  their  Em- 
pire are  in  grave  danger.  They  are  drilling  an  army  of  a 
million  men  here  for  next  spring;  more  and  more  troops 
come  from  all  the  Colonies,  where  additional  enlistments 
are  going  on.  They  feel  that  to  stop  before  a  decisive 
result  is  reached  would  simply  be  provoking  another  war, 
after  a  period  of  dread  such  as  they  have  lived  through 
the  last  ten  years;  a  large  and  increasing  proportion  of  the 
letters  you  see  are  on  black-bordered  paper  and  this  whole 
island  is  becoming  a  vast  hospital  and  prisoners'  camp — 
all  which,  so  far  from  bringing  them  to  think  of  peace, 
urges  them  to  renewed  effort;  and  all  the  while  the  bitter- 
ness grows. 

"The  Straus  incident1  produced  the  impression  here  that 
it  was  a  German  trick  to  try  to  shift  the  responsibility 
of  continuing  the  war,  to  the  British  shoulders.  Mr. 
Sharp's  bare  mention  of  peace  in  Paris  caused  the  French 
censor  to  forbid  the  transmission  of  a  harmless  interview; 
and  our  insistence  on  the  Declaration  left,  for  the  time 
being  at  least,  a  distinct  distrust  of  our  judgment  and 
perhaps  even  of  our  good-will.  It  was  suspected — I  am 


1The  reference  is  to  an  attempt  by  Germany  to  start  peace  negotiations  in 
September,  1914,  after  the  Battle  of  the  Maine.  This  is  described  in  the  next 
chapter. 


390       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

sure — that  the  German  influence  in  Washington  had  un- 
wittingly got  influence  over  the  Department.  The  atmos- 
phere (toward  me)  is  as  different  now  from  what  it  was  a 
week  ago  as  Arizona  sunshine  is  from  a  London  fog,  as 
much  as  to  say,  'After  all,  perhaps,  you  don't  mean  to  try 
to  force  us  to  play  into  the  hands  of  our  enemies!' ' 

in 

And  so  this  crisis  was  passed;  it  was  the  first  great  ser- 
vice that  Page  had  rendered  the  cause  of  the  Allies 
and  his  own  country.  Yet  shipping  difficulties  had  their 
more  agreeable  aspects.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  fact  that 
both  Page  and  Grey  had  an  understanding  sense  of  humour, 
neutrality  would  have  proved  a  more  difficult  path  than 
it  actually  was.  Even  amid  the  tragic  problems  with 
which  these  two  men  were  dealing  there  was  not  lacking 
an  occasional  moment's  relaxation  into  the  lighter  aspect 
of  things.  One  of  the  curious  memorials  preserved  in  the 
British  Foreign  Office  is  the  cancelled  $15,000,000  check 
with  which  Great  Britain  paid  the  Alabama  claims.  That 
the  British  should  frame  this  memento  of  their  great  diplo- 
matic defeat  and  hang  it  in  the  Foreign  Office  is  an  evi- 
dence of  the  fact  that  in  statesmanship,  as  in  less  exalted 
matters,  the  English  are  excellent  sports.  The  real 
justification  of  the  honour  paid  to  this  piece  of  paper,  of 
course,  is  that  the  settlement  of  the  Alabama  claims  by 
arbitration  signalized  a  great  forward  step  in  international 
relations  and  did  much  to  heal  a  century's  troubles  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  Great  Britain.  Sir  Edward 
Grey  used  frequently  to  call  Page's  attention  to  this  docu- 
ment. It  represented  the  amount  of  money,  then  con- 
sidered large,  which  Great  Britain  had  paid  the  United 
States  for  the  depredations  on  American  shipping  for 
which  she  was  responsible  during  the  Civil  War. 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  391 

One  day  the  two  men  were  discussing  certain  detentions 
of  American  cargoes — high-handed  acts  which,  in  Page's 
opinion,  were  unwarranted.  Not  infrequently,  in  the  heat 
of  discussion,  Page  would  get  up  and  pace  the  floor.  And 
on  this  occasion  his  body,  as  well  as  his  mind,  was  in  a 
state  of  activity.  Suddenly  his  eye  was  attracted  by  the 
framed  Alabama  check.  He  leaned  over,  peered  at  it 
intensely,  and  then  quickly  turned  to  the  Foreign  Sec- 
retary: 

"If  you  don't  stop  these  seizures,  Sir  Edward,  some  day 
you'll  have  your  entire  room  papered  with  things  like 
that!" 

Not  long  afterward  Sir  Edward  in  his  turn  scored  on 
Page.  The  Ambassador  called  to  present  one  of  the  many 
State  Department  notes.  The  occasion  was  an  embar- 
rassing one,  for  the  communication  was  written  in  the 
Department's  worst  literary  style.  It  not  infrequently 
happened  that  these  notes,  in  the  form  in  which  Page  re- 
ceived them,  could  not  be  presented  to  the  British  Govern- 
ment; they  were  so  rasping  and  undiplomatic  that  Page 
feared  that  he  would  suffer  the  humiliation  of  having  them 
returned,  for  there  are  certain  things  which  no  self-respect- 
ing Foreign  Office  will  accept.  On  such  occasions  it  was 
the  practice  of  the  London  Embassy  to  smooth  down 
the  language  before  handing  the  paper  to  the  Foreign 
Secretary.  The  present  note  was  one  of  this  kind; 
but  Page,  because  of  his  friendly  relations  with  Grey, 
decided  to  transmit  the  communication  in  its  original 
shape. 

Sir  Edward  glanced  over  the  document,  looked  up,  and 
remarked,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,— 

"This  reads  as  though  they  thought  that  they  are  still 
talking  to  George  the  Third." 

The  roar  of  laughter  that  followed  was  something  quite 


392       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

unprecedented  amid  the  thick  and  dignified  walls  of  the 
Foreign  Office. 

One  of  Page's  most  delicious  moments  came,  however, 
after  the  Ministry  of  Blockade  had  been  formed,  with 
Lord  Robert  Cecil  in  charge.  Lord  Robert  was  high 
minded  and  conciliatory,  but  his  knowledge  of  American 
history  was  evidently  not  without  its  lapses.  One  day, 
in  discussing  the  ill-feeling  aroused  in  the  United  States 
by  the  seizure  of  American  cargoes,  Page  remarked  ban- 
teringly : 

"You  must  not  forget  the  Boston  Tea  Party,  Lord 
Robert." 

The  Englishman  looked  up,  rather  puzzled. 

"But  you  must  remember,  Mr.  Page,  that  I  have 
never  been  in  Boston.  I  have  never  attended  a  tea  party 
there." 

It  has  been  said  that  the  tact  and  good  sense  of  Page 
and  Grey,  working  sympathetically  for  the  same  end, 
avoided  many  an  impending  crisis.  The  trouble  caused 
early  in  1915  by  the  ship  Dacia  and  the  way  in  which  the 
difficulty  was  solved,  perhaps  illustrate  the  value  of  this 
cooperation  at  its  best.  In  the  early  days  of  the  War 
Congress  passed  a  bill  admitting  foreign  ships  to  American 
registry.  The  wisdom  and  even  the  "neutrality"  of  such 
an  act  were  much  questioned  at  the  time.  Colonel  House, 
in  one  of  his  early  telegrams  to  the  President,  declared  that 
this  bill  "is  full  of  lurking  dangers."  Colonel  House  was 
right.  The  trouble  was  that  many  German  merchant 
ships  were  interned  in  American  harbours,  fearing  to  put 
to  sea,  where  the  watchful  British  warships  lay  waiting 
for  them.  Any  attempt  to  place  these  vessels  under  the 
American  flag,  and  to  use  them  for  trade  between  Amer- 
ican and  German  ports,  would  at  once  cause  a  crisis 
with  the  Allies,  for  such  a  paper  change  in  ownership 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  393 

would  be  altogether  too  transparent.  Great  Britain 
viewed  this  legislation  with  disfavour,  but  did  not  think  it 
politic  to  protest  such  transfers  generally;  Spring  Rice 
contented  himself  with  informing  the  State  Department 
that  his  government  would  not  object  so  long  as  this 
changed  status  did  not  benefit  Germany.  If  such  German 
ships,  after  being  transferred  to  the  American  flag,  en- 
gaged in  commerce  between  American  ports  and  South 
American  ports,  or  other  places  remotely  removed  from 
the  Fatherland,  Great  Britain  would  make  no  difficulty. 
The  Dacia,  a  merchantman  of  the  Hamburg-America 
line,  had  been  lying  at  her  wharf  in  Port  Arthur,  Texas, 
since  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  In  early  January,  1915, 
she  was  purchased  by  Mr.  E.  N.  Breitung,  of  Marquette, 
Michigan.  Mr.  Breitung  caused  great  excitement  in  the 
newspapers  when  he  announced  that  he  had  placed  the 
Dacia  under  American  registry,  according  to  the  terms  of 
this  new  law,  had  put  upon  her  an  American  crew,  and 
that  he  proposed  to  load  her  with  cotton  and  sail  for  Ger- 
many. The  crisis  had  now  arisen  which  the  well-wishers 
of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  had  so  dreaded. 
Great  Britain's  position  was  a  difficult  one.  If  it  ac- 
quiesced, the  way  would  be  opened  for  placing  under  Amer- 
ican registry  all  the  German  and  Austrian  ships  that  were 
then  lying  unoccupied  in  American  ports  and  using  them 
in  trade  between  the  United  States  and  the  Central  Powers. 
If  Great  Britain  seized  the  Dacia,  then  there  was  the 
likelihood  that  this  would  embroil  her  with  the  American 
Government — and  this  would  serve  German  purposes 
quite  as  well. 

Sir  Cecil  Spring  Rice,  the  British  Ambassador  at  Wash- 
ington, at  once  notified  Washington  that  the  Dacia  would 
be  seized  if  she  sailed  for  a  German  port.  The  cotton 
which  she  intended  to  carry  was  at  that  time  not  contra- 


394       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

band,  but  the  vessel  itself  was  German  and  was  thus  sub- 
ject to  apprehension  as  enemy  property.  The  seriousness 
of  this  position  was  that  technically  the  Dacia  was  now  an 
American  ship,  for  an  American  citizen  owned  her,  she 
carried  an  American  crew,  she  bore  on  her  flagstaff  the 
American  flag,  and  she  had  been  admitted  to  American 
registry  under  a  law  recently  passed  by  Congress.  How 
could  the  United  States  sit  by  quietly  and  permit 
this  seizure  to  take  place?  When  the  Dacia  sailed  on 
January  23rd  the  excitement  was  keen;  the  voyage  had 
obtained  a  vast  amount  of  newspaper  advertising,  and  the 
eyes  of  the  world  were  fixed  upon  her.  German  sym- 
pathizers attributed  the  attitude  of  the  American  Govern- 
ment in  permitting  the  vessel  to  sail  as  a  "dare"  to  Great 
Britain,  and  the  fact  that  Great  Britain  had  announced 
her  intention  of  taking  up  this  "dare"  made  the  situation 
still  more  tense. 

When  matters  had  reached  this  pass  Page  one  day 
dropped  into  the  Foreign  Office. 

"Have  you  ever  heard  of  the  British  fleet,  Sir  Edward?  " 
he  asked. 

Grey  admitted  that  he  had,  though  the  question  obvi- 
ously puzzled  him. 

" Yes,"  Page  went  on  musingly.  "We've  all  heard  of 
the  British  fleet.  Perhaps  we  have  heard  too  much 
about  it.  Don't  you  think  it's  had  too  much  advertis- 
ing?" 

The  Foreign  Secretary  looked  at  Page  with  an  expres- 
sion that  implied  a  lack  of  confidence  in  his  sanity. 

"But  have  you  ever  heard  of  the  French  fleet?"  the 
American  went  on.  "France  has  a  fleet  too,  I  believe." 

Sir  Edward  granted  that. 

"Don't  you  think  that  the  French  fleet  ought  to  have  a 
little  advertising?" 


f 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  395 

"What  on  earth  are  you  talking  about?" 

"Well,"  said  Page,  "there's  the  Dacia.  Why  not  let 
the  French  fleet  seize  it  and  get  some  advertising?" 

A  gleam  of  understanding  immediately  shot  across 
Grey's  face.  The  old  familiar  twinkle  came  into  his  eye. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "why  not  let  the  Belgian  royal  yacht 
seize  it?" 

This  suggestion  from  Page  was  one  of  the  great  inspira- 
tions of  the  war.  It  amounted  to  little  less  than  genius. 
By  this  time  Washington  was  pretty  wearied  of  the  Dacia, 
for  mature  consideration  had  convinced  the  Department 
that  Great  Britain  had  the  right  on  its  side.  Washington 
would  have  been  only  too  glad  to  find  a  way  out  of 
the  difficult  position  into  which  it  had  been  forced,  and 
this  Page  well  understood.  But  this  government  always 
finds  itself  in  an  awkward  plight  in  any  controversy  with 
Great  Britain,  because  the  hyphenates  raise  such  a  noise 
that  it  has  difficulty  in  deciding  such  disputes  upon  their 
merits.  To  ignore  the  capture  of  this  ship  by  the  British 
would  have  brought  all  this  hullabaloo  again  about  the 
ears  of  the  Administration.  But  the  position  of  France  is 
entirely  different;  the  memories  of  Lafayette  and  Rocham- 
beau  still  exercise  a  profound  spell  on  the  American  mind; 
France  does  not  suffer  from  the  persecution  of  hyphenate 
populations,  and  Americans  will  stand  even  outrages  from 
France  without  getting  excited.  Page  knew  that  if  the 
British  seized  the  Dacia,  the  cry  would  go  up  in  certain 
quarters  for  immediate  war,  but  that,  if  France  committed 
the  same  crime,  the  guns  of  the  adversary  would  be  spiked. 
Y  It  was  purely  a  case  of  sentiment  and ' '  psychology. ' '  And 
so  the  event  proved.  His  suggestion  was  at  once  acted 
on;  a  French  cruiser  went  out  into  the  Channel,  seized 
the  offending  ship,  took  it  into  port,  where  a  French  prize 
court  promptly  condemned  it.  The  proceeding  did  not 


396       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

cause  even  a  ripple  of  hostility.  The  Dacia  was  sold  to 
Frenchmen,  rechristened  the  Yser  and  put  to  work  in  the 
Mediterranean  trade.  The  episode  was  closed  in  the  lat- 
ter part  of  1915  when  a  German  submarine  torpedoed  the 
vessel  and  sent  it  to  the  bottom. 

Such  was  the  spirit  which  Page  and  Sir  Edward  Grey 
brought  to  the  solution  of  the  great  shipping  problems  of 
1914-1917.  There  is  much  more  to  tell  of  this  great  task 
of  "waging  neutrality,"  and  it  will  be  told  in  its  proper 
place.  But  already  it  is  apparent  to  what  extent  these 
two  men  served  the  great  cause  of  English-speaking  civi- 
lization. Neither  would  quibble  or  uphold  an  argument 
which  he  thought  unjust,  even  though  his  nation  might 
gain  in  a  material  sense,  and  neither  would  pitch  the  dis- 
cussion in  any  other  key  than  forbearance  and  mutual 
accommodation  and  courtliness.  For  both  men  had  the 
same  end  in  view.  They  were  both  thinking,  not  of  the 
present,  but  of  the  coming  centuries.  The  cooperation 
of  the  two  nations  in  meeting  the  dangers  of  autocracy 
and  Prussian  barbarism,  in  laying  the  foundations  of  a 
future  in  which  peace,  democracy,  and  international 
justice  should  be  the  directing  ideas  of  human  society — 
such  was  the  ultimate  purpose  at  which  these  two  states- 
men aimed.  And  no  men  have  ever  been  more  splendidly 
justified  by  events.  The  Anglo-American  situation  of 
1914  contained  dangers  before  which  all  believers  in  real 
progress  now  shudder.  Had  Anglo-American  diplomacy 
been  managed  with  less  skill  and  consideration,  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  would  have  become  involved  in 
a  quarrel  beside  which  all  their  previous  differences  would 
have  appeared  insignificant.  Mutual  hatreds  and  hos- 
tilities would  have  risen  that  would  have  prevented  the 
entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  the 
Allies.  It  is  not  inconceivable  that  the  history  of  1812 


"WAGING  NEUTRALITY"  397 

would  have  been  repeated,  and  that  the  men  and  resources 
of  this  country  might  have  been  used  to  support  purposes 
which  have  always  been  hateful  to  the  American  con- 
science. That  the  world  was  saved  from  this  calamity  is 
owing  largely  to  the  fact  that  Great  Britain  had  in  its 
Foreign  Office  a  man  who  was  always  solving  temporary 
irritations  with  his  eyes  constantly  fixed  upon  a  great 
goal,  and  that  the  United  States  had  as  ambassador  in 
London  a  man  who  had  the  most  exalted  view  of  the  mis- 
sion of  his  country,  who  had  dedicated  his  life  to  the  world- 
wide spread  of  the  American  ideal,  and  who  believed  that 
an  indispensable  part  of  this  work  was  the  maintenance  of 
a  sympathetic  and  helpful  cooperation  with  the  English- 
speaking  peoples. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES 


Declaration  of  London  was  not  the  only  problem 
J-  that  distracted  Page  in  these  early  months  of  the  war. 
Washington's  apparent  determination  to  make  peace  also 
added  to  his  daily  anxieties.  That  any  attempt  to  end 
hostilities  should  have  distressed  so  peace-loving  and 
humanitarian  a  statesman  as  Page  may  seem  surprising; 
it  was,  however,  for  the  very  reason  that  he  was  a  man  of 
peace  that  these  Washington  endeavours  caused  him  end- 
less worry.  In  Page's  opinion  they  indicated  that  Presi- 
dent Wilson  did  not  have  an  accurate  understanding  of 
the  war.  The  inspiring  force  back  of  them,  as  the  Am- 
bassador  well  understood,  was  a  panic-stricken  Germany. 
The  real  purpose  was  not  a  peace,  but  a  truce;  and  the 
cause  which  was  to  be  advanced  was  not  democracy  but 
Prussian  absolutism.  Between  the  Battle  of  the  Marne 
and  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  four  attempts  were  made 
t  to  end  the  war;  all  four  were  set  afoot  by  Germany. 
President  Wilson  was  the  man  to  whom  the  Germans  ap- 
pealed to  rescue  them  from  their  dilemma.  It  is  no  longer 
a  secret  that  the  Germans  at  this  time  regarded  their 
situation  as  a  tragic  one;  the  success  that  they  had 
anticipated  for  forty  years  had  proved  to  be  a  disaster. 
The  attempt  to  repeat  the  great  episodes  of  1864,  1866, 
and  1870,  when  Prussia  had  overwhelmed  Denmark, 
Austria,  and  France  in  three  brief  campaigns,  had  igno- 
miniously  failed.  Instead  of  beholding  a  conquered  Eu- 
rope at  her  feet,  Germany  awoke  from  her  illusion  to  find 

398 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  399 

herself  encompassed  by  a  ring  of  resolute  and  powerful 
foes.  The  fact  that  the  British  Empire,  with  its  immense 
resources,  naval,  military,  and  economic,  was  now  lead- 
ing the  alliance  against  them,  convinced  the  most  intelli- 
gent Germans  that  the  Fatherland  was  face  to  face  with 
the  greatest  crisis  in  its  history. 

Peace  now  became  the  underground  Germanic  pro- 
gramme. Yet  the  Germans  did  not  have  that  inexorable 
respect  for  facts  which  would  have  persuaded  them  to 
accept  terms  to  which  the  Allies  could  consent.  The 
military  oligarchy  were  thinking  not  so  much  of  saving 
the  Fatherland  as  of  saving  themselves;  a  settlement 
which  would  have  been  satisfactory  to  their  enemies 
would  have  demanded  concessions  which  the  German 
people,  trained  for  forty  years  to  expect  an  unparalleled 
victory,  would  have  regarded  as  a  defeat.  The  collapse 
of  the  militarists  and  of  Hohenzollernism  would  have  en- 
sued. What  the  German  oligarchy  desired  was  a  peace 
which  they  could  picture  to  their  deluded  people  as  a 
triumph,  one  that  would  enable  them  to  extricate  them- 
selves at  the  smallest  possible  cost  from  what  seemed  a 
desperate  position,  to  escape  the  penalties  of  their  crimes, 
to  emerge  from  their  failure  with  a  Germany  still  power- 
ful, both  in  economic  resources  and  in  arms,  and  to  set  to 
work  again  industriously  preparing  for  a  renewal  of  the 
struggle  at  a  more  favourable  time.  If  negotiations  re- 
sulted in  such  a  truce,  the  German  purpose  would  be  splen- 
didly served;  even  if  they  failed,  however,  the  gain  for 
Germany  would  still  be  great.  Germany  could  appear  as 
the  belligerent  which  desired  peace  and  the  Entente  could 
perhaps  be  manoeuvred  into  the  position  of  the '  side 
responsible  for  continuing  the  war.  The  consideration 
which  was  chiefly  at  stake  in  these  tortuous  proceedings 
was  public  opinion  in  the  United  States.  Americans  do 


400       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER  H.    PAGE 

not  yet  understand  the  extent  to  which  their  country  was 
regarded  as  the  determining  power.  Both  the  German 
and  the  British  Foreign  Offices  clearly  understood,  in 
August,  1914,  that  the  United  States,  by  throwing  its 

I  support,  especially  its  economic  support,  to  one  side  or 
the  other,  could  settle  the  result.  Probably  Germany 
grasped  this  point  even  more  clearly  than  did  Great 
Britain,  for,  from  the  beginning,  she  constantly  nourished 
the  hope  that  she  could  embroil  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain — a  calamity  which  would  have  given  vic- 
tory to  the  German  arms.  In  every  German  move  there 

I  were  thus  several  motives,  and  one  of  the  chief  purposes 
of  the  subterranean  campaigns  which  she  now  started 
for  peace  was  the  desire  of  putting  Britain  in  the  false 
light  of  prolonging  the  war  for  aggressive  purposes, 
and  thus  turning  to  herself  that  public  opinion  in  this 
country  which  was  so  outspoken  on  the  side  of  the 
Allies.  Such  public  opinion,  if  it  could  be  brought  to 
regard  Germany  in  a  tolerant  spirit,  could  easily  be 
fanned  into  a  flame  by  the  disputes  over  blockades  and 
shipping,  and  the  power  of  the  United  States  might  thus 
be  used  for  the  advancement  of  the  Fatherland.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  Germany  could  obtain  a  peace  which 
would  show  a  profit  for  her  tremendous  effort,  then  the 
negotiations  would  have  accomplished  their  purpose. 

Conditions  at  Washington  favoured  operations  of  this 
kind.  Secretary  Bryan  was  an  ultra-pacifist;  like  men  of 
one  idea,  he  saw  only  the  fact  of  a  hideous  war,  and  he  was 
prepared  to  welcome  anything  that  would  end  hostilities. 
The  cessation  of  bloodshed  was  to  him  the  great  purpose  to 
be  attained :  in  the  mind  of  Secretary  Bryan  it  was  more 
important  that  the  war  should  be  stopped  than  that  the 
Allies  should  win.  To  President  Wilson  the  European 
disaster  appeared  to  be  merely  a  selfish  struggle  for 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  401 

power,  in  which  both  sides  were  almost  equally  to  blame.  ^ 
He  never  accepted  Page's  obvious  interpretation  that  the 
single  cause  was  Germany's  determination  to  embark 
upon  a  war  of  world  conquest.  From  the  beginning, 
therefore,  Page  saw  that  he  would  have  great  difficulty  in 
preventing  intervention  from  Washington  in  the  interest 
of  Germany,  yet  this  was  another  great  service  to  which 
he  now  unhesitatingly  directed  his  efforts. 

The  Ambassador  was  especially  apprehensive  of  these 
peace  moves  in  the  early  days  of  September,  when  the  J 
victorious  German  armies  were  marching  on  Paris.  In 
London,  as  in  most  parts  of  the  world,  the  capture  of  the 
French  capital  was  then  regarded  as  inevitable.  Sep- 
tember 3,  1914,  was  one  of  the  darkest  days  in  modern 
times.  The  population  of  Paris  was  fleeing  southward; 
the  Government  had  moved  its  headquarters  to  Bordeaux; 
and  the  moment  seemed  to  be  at  hand  wrhen  the  German 
Emperor  would  make  his  long  anticipated  entry  into  the 
capital  of  France.  It  was  under  these  circumstances  that 
the  American  Ambassador  to  Great  Britain  sent  the  fol- 
lowing message  directly  to  the  President: 

To  the  President 

American  Embassy,  London, 

Sep.  3,  4  A.  M. 

Everybody  in  this  city  confidently  believes  that  the 
Germans,  if  they  capture  Paris,  will  make  a  proposal  for 
peace,  and  that  the  German  Emperor  will  send  you  a 
message  declaring  that  he  is  unwilling  to  shed  another 
drop  of  blood.  Any  proposal  that  the  Kaiser  makes  will 
be  simply  the  proposal  of  a  conqueror.  His  real  purpose 
will  be  to  preserve  the  Hohenzollern  dynasty  and  the 
imperial  bureaucracy.  The  prevailing  English  judgment 
is  that,  if  Germany  be  permitted  to  stop  hostilities,  the 


402       THE   LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

war  will  have  accomplished  nothing.  There  is  a  determi- 
nation here  to  destroy  utterly  the  German  bureaucracy, 
and  Englishmen  are  prepared  to  sacrifice  themselves  to 
any  extent  in  men  and  money.  The  preparations  that 
are  being  made  here  are  for  a  long  war;  as  I  read  the  dis- 
position and  the  character  of  Englishmen  they  will  not 
stop  until  they  have  accomplished  their  purpose.  There 
is  a  general  expression  of  hope  in  this  country  that  neither 
the  American  Government  nor  the  public  opinion  of  our 
country  will  look  upon  any  suggestion  for  peace  as  a 
serious  one  which  does  not  aim,  first  of  all,  at  the  absolute 
destruction  of  the  German  bureaucracy. 

From  such  facts  as  I  can  obtain,  it  seems  clear  to  me 
that  the  opinion  of  Europe — excluding  of  course,  Ger- 
many— is  rapidly  solidifying  into  a  severe  condemnation 
of  the  German  Empire.  The  profoundest  moral  judg- 
ment of  the  world  is  taking  the  strongest  stand  against 
Germany  and  German  methods.  Such  incidents  as  the 
burning  of  Louvain  and  other  places,  the  slaughter  of 
civilian  populations,  the  outrages  against  women  and 
children — outrages  of  such  a  nature  that  they  cannot  be 
printed,  but  which  form  a  matter  of  common  conversation 
everywhere — have  had  the  result  of  arousing  Great 
Britain  to  a  mood  of  the  grimmest  determination. 

PAGE. 

This  message  had  hardly  reached  Washington  when 
the  peace  effort  of  which  it  warned  the  President  began  to 
take  practical  form.  In  properly  estimating  these  ma- 
noeuvres it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  German  diplomacy 
always  worked  underground  and  that  it  approached  its 
negotiations  in  a  way  that  would  make  the  other  side 
appear  as  taking  the  initiative.  This  was  a  phase  of 
German  diplomatic  technique  with  which  every  Euro- 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  403 

pean  Foreign  Office  had  long  been  familiar.  Count  Bern- 
storff  arrived  in  the  United  States  from  Germany  in  the 
latter  part  of  August,  evidently  with  instructions  from 
his  government  to  secure  the  intercession  of  the  United 
States.  There  were  two  unofficial  men  in  New  York  who 
were  ideally  qualified  to  serve  the  part  of  intermediaries. 
Mr.  James  Speyer  had  been  born  in  New  York;  he  had 
received  his  education  at  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  Ger- 
many, and  had  spent  his  apprenticeship  also  in  the  family 
banking  house  in  that  city.  As  the  head  of  an  American 
banking  house  with  important  German  affiliations,  his 
interests  and  sympathies  were  strong  on  the  side  of  the 
Fatherland;  indeed,  he  made  no  attempt  to  conceal  his 
strong  pro-Germanism. 

Mr.  Oscar  S.  Straus  had  been  born  in  Germany;  his 
father  had  been  a  German  revolutionist  of  'Forty-eight; 
like  Carl  Schurz,  Abraham  Jacobi,  and  Franz  Sigel, 
he  had  come  to  America  to  escape  Prussian  militarism  and 
the  Prussian  autocracy,  and  his  children  had  been  edu- 
cated in  a  detestation  of  the  things  for  which  the  German 
Empire  stood.  Mr.  Oscar  Straus  was  only  two  years  old 
when  he  was  brought  to  this  country,  and  he  had  given 
the  best  evidences  of  his  Americanism  in  a  distinguished 
public  career.  Three  times  he  had  served  the  United 
States  as  Ambassador  to  Turkey;  he  had  filled  the  post  of 
Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labour  in  President  Roose- 
velt's cabinet,  and  had  held  other  important  public 
commissions.  Among  his  other  activities,  Mr.  Straus 
had  played  an  important  part  in  the  peace  movement  of 
the  preceding  quarter  of  a  century  and  he  had  been  a 
member  of  the  Permanent  Court  of  Arbitration  at  The 
Hague.  Mr.  Straus  was  on  excellent  terms  with  the 
German,  the  British,  and  the  French  ambassadors  at 
Washington.  As  far  back  as  1888,  when  he  was  American 


404       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

Minister  at  Constantinople,  Bernstorff,  then  a  youth, 
was  an  attache  at  the  German  Embassy;  the  young  Ger- 
man was  frequently  at  the  American  Legation  and  used 
to  remind  Mr.  Straus,  whenever  he  met  him  in  later 
years,  how  pleasantly  he  remembered  his  hospitality. 
With  Sir  Cecil  Spring  Rice,  the  British  Ambassador,  and 
M.  Jules  Jusserand,  the  French  Ambassador,  Mr.  Straus 
had  also  become  friendly  in  Constantinople  and  in  Wash- 
ington. This  background,  and  Mr.  Straus's  well-known 
pro-British  sentiments,  would  have  made  him  a  desirable 
man  to  act  as  a  liaison  agent  between  the  Germans  and 
the  Allies,  but  there  were  other  reasons  why  this  ex- 
ambassador  would  be  useful  at  this  time.  Mr.  Straus 
had  been  in  Europe  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war;  he  had 
come  into  contact  with  the  British  statesmen  in  those 
exciting  early  August  days ;  in  particular  he  had  discussed 
all  phases  of  the  conflict  with  Sir  Edward  Grey,  and  before 
leaving  England,  he  had  given  certain  interviews  which 
the  British  statesmen  declared  had  greatly  helped  their 
cause  in  the  United  States.  Of  course,  the  German 
Government  knew  all  about  these  activities. 

On  September  4th,  Mr.  Straus  arrived  at  New  York  on 
the  Mauretania.  He  had  hardly  reached  this  country 
when  he  was  called  upon  the  telephone  by  Mr.  Speyer,  a 
friend  of  many  years'  standing.  Count  Bernstorff,  the 
German  Ambassador,  Mr.  Speyer  said,  was  a  guest  at 
his  country  home,  Waldheim,  at  Scarboro,  on  the  Hud- 
son; Mr.  Speyer  was  giving  a  small,  informal  dinner 
the  next  evening,  Saturday,  September  5th,  and  he  asked 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Straus  to  come.  The  other  important 
guests  were  Mr.  Frank  A.  Vanderlip,  president  of  the 
National  City  Bank,  and  Mrs.  Vanderlip.  Mr.  Straus 
accepted  the  invitation,  mentally  resolving  that  he  would 
not  discuss  the  war  himself,  but  merely  listen.  It  would 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  405 

certainly  have  been  a  difficult  task  for  any  man  to  avoid 
this  subject  on  this  particular  evening;  the  date  was 
September  5th,  the  day  when  the  German  Army  sud- 
denly stopped  in  its  progress  toward  Paris,  and  began 
retreating,  the  French  and  the  British  forces  in  pursuit. 
A  few  minutes  before  Count  Bernstorff  sat  down  at  Mr. 
Speyer's  table,  with  Mr.  Straus  opposite,  he  had  learned 
that  the  magnificent  enterprise  which  Germany  had 
planned  for  forty  years  had  failed,  and  that  his  country 
was  facing  a  monstrous  disaster.  The  Battle  of  the 
Marne  was  raging  in  all  its  fury  while  this  pacific  con- 
versation at  Mr.  Speyer's  house  was  taking  place. 

Of  course  the  war  became  the  immediate  topic  of  dis- 
cussion. Count  Bernstorff  at  once  plunged  into  the 
usual  German  point  of  view — that  Germany  did  not  want 
war  in  the  first  place,  that  the  Entente  had  forced  the 
issue,  and  the  like. 

"The  Emperor  and  the  German  Government  stood 
for  peace,"  he  said. 

Naturally,  a  man  who  had  spent  a  considerable  part  of 
his  life  promoting  the  peace  cause  pricked  up  his  ears  at 
this  statement. 

"Does  that  sentiment  still  prevail  in  Germany P" 
asked  Mr.  Straus. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  German  Ambassador. 

"Would  your  government  entertain  a  proposal  for 
mediation  now?"  asked  Mr.  Straus. 

"Certainly,"  Bernstorff  promptly  replied.  He  has- 
tened to  add,  however,  that  he  was  speaking  unofficially. 
He  had  had  no  telegraphic  communication  from  Berlin 
for  five  days,  and  therefore  could  not  definitely  give  the 
attitude  of  his  government.  But  he  was  quite  sure  that 
the  Kaiser  would  be  glad  to  have  President  Wilson  take 
steps  to  end  the  war. 


406       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

The  possibility  that  he  might  play  a  part  in  bringing 
hostilities  to  a  close  now  occurred  to  Mr.  Straus.  He  had 
come  to  the  dinner  determined  to  avoid  the  subject  alto- 
gether, but  Count  Bernstorff  had  precipitated  the  issue 
in  a  way  that  left  the  American  no  option.  Certainly 
Mr.  Straus  would  have  been  derelict  if  he  had  not  reported 
this  conversation  to  the  high  quarters  for  which  Count 
Bernstorff  had  evidently  intended  it. 

"That  is  a  very  important  statement  you  have  made, 
Mr.  Ambassador,"  said  Mr.  Straus,  measuring  every 
word.  "May  I  make  use  of  it?" 

"Yes." 

"May  I  use  it  in  any  way  I  choose?" 

"You  may,"  replied  Bernstorff. 

Mr.  Straus  saw  in  this  acquiescent  mood  a  chance  to 
appeal  directly  to  President  Wilson. 

"Do  you  object  to  my  laying  this  matter  before  our 
government?" 

"No,  I  do  not." 

Mr.  Straus  glanced  at  his  watch;  it  was  10:15  o'clock. 

"I  think  I  shall  go  to  Washington  at  once — this  very 
night.  I  can  get  the  midnight  train." 

Mr.  Speyer,  who  has  always  maintained  that  this  pro- 
ceeding was  casual  and  in  no  way  promoted  by  himself 
and  Bernstorff,  put  in  a  word  of  caution. 

"I  would  sleep  on  it,"  he  suggested. 

But,  in  a  few  moments,  Mr.  Straus  was  speeding  in  his 
automobile  through  Westchester  County  in  the  direction 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Station.  He  caught  the  express, 
and,  the  next  morning,  which  was  Sunday  the  sixth,  he 
was  laying  the  whole  matter  before  Secretary  Bryan  at  the 
latter's  house.  Naturally,  Mr.  Bryan  was  overjoyed  at 
the  news;  he  at  once  summoned  Bernstorff  from  New 
York  to  Washington,  and  went  over  the  suggestion  per- 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  407 

sonally.  The  German  Ambassador  repeated  the  state- 
ments which  he  had  made  to  Mr.  Straus — always  guard- 
edly qualifying  his  remarks  by  saying  that  the  proposal 
had  not  come  originally  from  him  but  from  his  Ameri- 
can friend.  Meanwhile  Mr.  Bryan  asked  Mr.  Straus  to 
discuss  the  matter  with  the  British  and  French  ambas- 
sadors. 

The  meeting  took  place  at  the  British  Embassy.  The 
two  representatives  of  the  Entente,  though  only  too  glad 
to  talk  the  matter  over,  were  more  skeptical  about  the 
attitude  of  Bernstorff  than  Mr.  Bryan  had  been. 

"Of  course,  Mr.  Straus,"  said  Sir  Cecil  Spring  Rice, 
"you  know  that  this  dinner  was  arranged  purposely  so 
that  the  German  Ambassador  could  meet  you?" 

Mr.  Straus  demurred  at  this  statement,  but  the  Eng- 
lishman smiled. 

"Do  you  suppose,"  Sir  Cecil  asked,  "that  any  am- 
bassador would  make  such  a  statement  as  Bernstorff 
made  to  you  without  instructions  from  his  govern- 
ment?" 

"You  and  M.  Jusserand,"  replied  the  American,  "have 
devoted  your  whole  lives  to  diplomacy  with  distinguished 
ability  and  you  can  therefore  answer  that  question  better 
than  I." 

"I  can  assure  you,"  replied  M.  Jusserand,  "that  no 
ambassador  under  the  German  system  would  dare  for  a 
moment  to  make  such  a  statement  without  being  author- 
ized to  do  so." 

"The  Germans,"  added  Sir  Cecil,  "have  a  way  of 
making  such  statements  unofficially  and  then  denying 
that  they  have  ever  made  them." 

Both  the  British  and  French  ambassadors,  however, 
thought  that  the  proposal  should  be  seriously  considered. 

"If  it  holds  out  one  chance  in  a  hundred  of  lessening 


-J 


408       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

the  length  of  the  war,  we  should  entertain  it,"  said  Am- 
bassador Jusserand. 

"I  certainly  hope  that  you  will  entertain  it  cordially," 
said  Mr.  Straus. 

"Not  cordially — that  is  a  little  too  strong." 

' '  Well,  sympathetically  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  sympathetically,"  said  M.  Jusserand,  with  a 
smile. 

These  facts  were  at  once  cabled  to  Page,  who  took  the 
matter  up  with  Sir  Edward  Grey.  A  despatch  from  the 
latter  to  the  British  Ambassador  in  Washington  gives  a 
splendid  summary  of  the  British  attitude  on  such  ap- 
proaches at  this  time. 

Sir  Edward  Grey  to  Sir  Cecil  Spring  Rice 

Foreign  Office, 

September  9,  1914. 
SIR: 

The  American  Ambassador  showed  me  to-day  a  com- 
munication that  he  had  from  Mr.  Bryan.  It  was  to  the 
effect  that  Mr.  Straus  and  Mr.  Speyer  had  been  talking 
with  the  German  Ambassador,  who  had  said  that,  though 
he  was  without  instructions,  he  thought  that  Germany 
might  be  disposed  to  end  the  war  by  mediation.  This 
had  been  repeated  to  Mr.  Bryan,  who  had  spoken  to  the 
German  Ambassador,  and  had  heard  the  same  from 
him.  Mr.  Bryan  had  taken  the  matter  up,  and  was 
asking  direct  whether  the  German  Emperor  would  ac- 
cept mediation  if  the  other  parties  who  were  at  war  would 
do  the  same. 

The  American  Ambassador  said  to  me  that  this  in- 
formation gave  him  a  little  concern.  He  feared  that, 
coming  after  the  declaration  that  we  had  signed  last  week 
with  France  and  Russia  about  carrying  on  the  war  in 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES 

common,1  the  peace  parties  in  the  United  States  might 
be  given  the  impression  that  Germany  was  in  favour  of 
peace,  and  that  the  responsibility  for  continuing  the  war 
was  on  others. 

I  said  that  the  agreement  that  we  had  made  with 
France  and  Russia  was  an  obvious  one;  when  three 
countries  were  at  war  on  the  same  side,  one  of  them  could 
not  honourably  make  special  terms  for  itself  and  leave 
the  others  in  the  lurch.  As  to  mediation,  I  was  favour- 
able to  it  in  principle,  but  the  real  question  was:  On 
what  terms  could  the  war  be  ended?  If  the  United 
States  could  devise  anything  that  would  bring  this  war 
to  an  end  and  prevent  another  such  war  being  forced  on 
Europe  I  should  welcome  the  proposal. 

The  Ambassador  said  that  before  the  war  began  I  had 
made  suggestions  for  avoiding  it,  and  that  these  sugges- 
tions had  been  refused. 

I  said  that  this  was  so,  but  since  the  war  began  there 
were  two  further  considerations  to  be  borne  in  mind :  We 
were  fighting  to  save  the  wrest  of  Europe  from  being  dom- 
inated by  Prussian  militarism;  Germany  had  prepared  to 
the  day  for  this  war,  and  we  could  not  again  have  a  great 
military  power  in  the  middle  of  Europe  preparing  war  in 
this  way  and  forcing  it  upon  us;  and  the  second  thing  was 
that  cruel  wrong  had  been  done  to  Belgium,  for  which 
there  should  be  some  compensation.  I  had  no  indication 
whatever  that  Germany  was  prepared  to  make  any 
reparation  to  Belgium,  and,  while  repeating  that  in 
principle  I  was  favourable  to  mediation,  I  could  see 
nothing  to  do  but  to  wait  for  the  reply  of  the  German 
Emperor  to  the  question  that  Mr.  Bryan  had  put  to  him 

lOn  September  5,  1914,  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Russia  signed  the  Pact  of 
London,  an  agreement  which  bound  the  three  powers  of  the  Entente  to  make  war 
and  peace  as  a  unit.  Each  power  specifically  pledged  itself  not  to  make  a  separate 
peace. 


410       THE   LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

and  for  the  United  States  to  ascertain  on  what  terms 
Germany  would  make  peace  if  the  Emperor's  reply  was 
favourable  to  mediation. 

The  Ambassador  made  it  quite  clear  that  he  regarded 
what  the  German  Ambassador  had  said  as  a  move  in  the 
game.  He  agreed  with  what  I  had  said  respecting  terms 
of  peace,  and  that  there  seemed  no  prospect  at  present  of 
Germany  being  prepared  to  accept  them. 

I  am,  &c., 

E.  GREY. 

A  letter  from  Page  to  Colonel  House  gives  Page's  in- 
terpretation of  this  negotiation : 

To  Edward  M.  House 

London,  September  10, 1914. 
MY  DEAR  HOUSE: 

A  rather  serious  situation  has  arisen:  The  Germans  of 
course  thought  that  they  would  take  Paris.  They  were 
then  going  to  propose  a  conqueror's  terms  of  peace,  which 
they  knew  would  not  be  accepted.  But  they  would  use 
their  so-called  offer  of  peace  purely  for  publicity  pur- 
poses. They  would  say,  "See,  men  of  the  world,  we  want 
peace;  we  offer  peace;  the  continuance  of  this  awful  war 
is  not  our  doing."  They  are  using  Hearst  for  this  pur- 
pose. I  fear  they  are  trying  to  use  so  good  a  man  as 
Oscar  Straus.  They  are  fooling  the  Secretary. 

Every  nation  was  willing  to  accept  Sir  Edward  Grey's 
proposals  but  Germany.  She  was  bent  on  a  war  of 
conquest.  Now  she's  likely  to  get  licked — lock,  stock 
and  barrel.  She  is  carrying  on  a  propaganda  and  a  pub- 
licity campaign  all  over  the  world.  The  Allies  can't  and 
won't  accept  any  peace  except  on  the  condition  that  Ger- 
man militarism  be  uprooted.  They  are  not  going  to  live 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  411 

again  under  that  awful  shadow  and  fear.  They  say 
truly  that  life  on  such  terms  is  not  worth  living.  More- 
over, if  Germany  should  win  the  military  control  of 
Europe,  she  would  soon — that  same  war-party — attack 
the  United  States.  The  war  will  not  end  until  this  con- 
dition can  be  imposed — that  there  shall  be  no  more  mili- 
tarism. 

But  in  the  meantime,  such  men  as  Straus  (a  good 
fellow)  may  be  able  to  let  (by  helping)  the  Germans  ap- 
pear to  the  Peace  people  as  really  desiring  peace.  Of 
course,  what  they  want  is  to  save  their  mutton. 

And  if  we  begin  mediation  talk  now  on  that  basis,  we 
shall  not  be  wanted  when  a  real  chance  for  mediation 
comes.  If  we  are  so  silly  as  to  play  into  the  hands  of  the 
German-Hearst  publicity  bureau,  our  chance  for  real 
usefulness  will  be  thrown  away. 

Put  the  President  on  his  guard. 

W.  H.  P. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  month  came  Germany's  reply. 
One  would  never  suspect,  when  reading  it,  that  Germany 
had  played  any  part  in  instigating  the  negotiation.  The 
Kaiser  repeated  the  old  charges  that  the  Entente  had 
forced  the  war  on  the  Fatherland,  that  it  was  now  de- 
termined to  annihilate  the  Central  Powers  and  that  con- 
sequently there  was  no  hope  that  the  warring  countries 
could  agree  upon  acceptable  terms  for  ending  the  struggle. 

So  ended  Germany's  first  peace  drive,  and  in  the  only 
possible  way  that  it  could  end.  But  the  Washington  ad- 
ministration continued  to  be  most  friendly  to  mediation. 
A  letter  of  Colonel  House's,  dated  October  4,  1914,  pos- 
sesses great  historical  importance.  It  was  written  after 
a  detailed  discussion  with  President  Wilson,  and  it  in- 
dicates not  only  the  President's  desire  to  bring  the  struggle 


412       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

to  a  close,  but  it  describes  in  some  detail  the  principles 
which  the  President  then  regarded  as  essential  to  a  per- 
manent peace.  It  furnishes  the  central  idea  of  the  pres- 
idential policy  for  the  next  four  years ;  indeed,  it  contains 
the  first  statement  of  that  famous  "Article  X"  of  the 
Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations  which  was  Mr.  Wil- 
son's most  important  contribution  to  that  contentious 
document.  This  was  the  article  which  pledges  the 
League  "to  respect  and  preserve  as  against  external  ag- 
gression the  territorial  integrity  and  existing  political  in- 
dependence" of  all  its  members;  it  was  the  article  which, 
more  than  any  other,  made  the  League  obnoxious  to 
Americans,  who  interpreted  it  as  an  attempt  to  involve 
them  perpetually  in  the  quarrels  of  Europe;  and  it  was 
the  one  section  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  which  was  most 
responsible  for  the  rejection  of  that  document  by  the 
United  States  Senate.  There  are  other  suggestions  in 
Colonel  House's  letter  which  apparently  bore  fruit  in  the 
League  Covenant.  It  is  somewhat  astonishing  that  a  let- 
ter of  Colonel  House's,  written  as  far  back  as  October  3, 
1914,  two  months  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  should 
contain  "Article  X"  as  one  of  the  essential  terms  of 
peace,  as  well  as  other  ideas  afterward  incorporated  in 
that  document,  accompanied  by  an  injunction  that  Page 
should  present  the  suggestion  to  Sir  Edward  Grey: 

From  Edward  M.  House 

115  East  53rd  Street, 
New  York  City. 
October  3rd,  1914. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

Frank  [the  Ambassador's  son]  has  just  come  in  and  has 
given  me  your  letter  of  September  22nd1  which  is  of  ab- 

^ubjished  in  Chapter  XI,  page  327. 


GERMANY  S   FIRST   PEACE   DRIVES 

sorbing  interest.  You  have  never  done  anything  better 
than  this  letter,  and  some  day,  when  you  give  the  word, 
it  must  be  published.  But  in  the  meantime,  it  will  repose 
in  the  safe  deposit  box  along  with  your  others  and  with 
those  of  our  great  President. 

I  have  just  returned  from  Washington  where  I  was  with 
the  President  for  nearly  four  days.  He  is  looking  well 
and  is  well.  Sometimes  his  spirits  droop,  but  then  again, 
he  is  his  normal  self. 

Before  I  came  from  Prides1  I  was  fearful  lest  Straus, 
Bernstorff,  and  others  would  drive  the  President  into 
doing  something  unwise.  I  have  always  counselled  him 
to  remain  quiet  for  the  moment  and  let  matters  unfold 
themselves  further.  In  the  meantime,  I  have  been  con- 
ferring with  Bernstorff,  with  Dumba,2  and,  of  course, 
Spring  Rice.  The  President  now  wants  me  to  keep  in 
touch  with  the  situation,  and  I  do  not  think  there  is 
any  danger  of  any  one  on  the  outside  injecting  himself 
into  it  unless  Mr.  Bryan  does  something  on  his  own 
initiative. 

Both  Bernstorff  and  Dumba  say  that  their  countries 
are  ready  for  peace  talks,  but  the  difficulty  is  with  Eng- 
land. Sir  Cecil  says  their  statements  are  made  merely  to 
place  England  in  a  false  position. 

The  attitude,  I  think,  for  England  to  maintain  is  the 
one  which  she  so  ably  put  forth  to  the  world.     That  is, 
peace  must  come  only  upon  condition  of  disarmament   \/ 
and  must  be  permanent.     I  have  a  feeling  that  Germany 
will  soon  be  willing  to  discuss  terms.     I  do  not  agree 
that  Germany  has  to  be  completely  crushed  and  that    »/ 
terms  must  be  made  either  in  Berlin  or  London.     It  is 
manifestly  against  England's  interest  and  the  interest  of 

Colonel  House's  summer  home  in  Massachusetts. 
2Ambassador  from  Austria-Hungary  to  the  United  States. 


414       THE   LIFE    AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

/  Europe  generally  for  Russia  to  become  the  dominating 
military  force  in  Europe,  just  as  Germany  was.  The 
dislike  which  England  has  for  Germany  should  not  blind 
her  to  actual  conditions.  If  Germany  is  crushed,  Eng- 
land cannot  solely  write  the  terms  of  peace,  but  Russia's 
wishes  must  also  largely  prevail. 

With  Russia  strong  in  militarism,  there  is  no  way  by 
which  she  could  be  reached.  Her  government  is  so  con- 
/  stituted  that  friendly  conversations  could  not  be  had  with 
her  as  they  might  be  had  even  with  such  a  power  as  Ger- 
many, and  the  world  would  look  forward  to  another  cat- 
aclysm and  in  the  not  too  distant  future. 

When  peace  conversations  begin,  at  best,  they  will 
probably  continue  many  months  before  anything  tangible 
comes  from  them.  England  and  the  Allies  could  readily 
stand  on  the  general  proposition  that  only  enduring  peace 
will  satisfy  them  and  I  can  see  no  insuperable  obstacle 
in  the  way. 

The  Kaiser  did  not  want  war  and  was  not  responsible 
for  it  further  than  his  lack  of  foresight  which  led  him  to 
build  up  a  formidable  engine  of  war  which  later  domi- 
nated him.  Peace  cannot  be  made  until  the  war  party 
<i  in  Germany  find  that  their  ambitions  cannot  be  realized, 
and  this,  I  think,  they  are  beginning  to  know. 

When  the  war  is  ended  and  the  necessary  territorial 
\  alignments  made,  it  seems  to  me,  the  best  guaranty  of 
peace  could  be  brought  by  every  nation  in  Europe  guar- 
anteeing the  territorial  integrity  of  every  other  nation.1 
By  confining  the  manufacture  of  arms  to  the  governments 
themselves  and  by  permitting  representatives  of  all 
nations  to  inspect,  at  any  time,  the  works.2 


is,  with  certain  modifications  is  Article  10  of  the  Covenant  of  the  League 
of  Nations. 

2There  is  a  suggestion  of  these  provisions  in  Article  8  of  the  League  Covenant. 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  415 

Then,  too,  all  sources  of  national  irritation  should  be 
removed  so  what  at  first  may  be  a  sore  spot  cannot  grow 
into  a  malignant  disease.1  It  will  not  be  too  difficult,  I 
think,  to  bring  about  an  agreement  that  will  insure  per- 
manent peace,  provided  all  the  nations  of  Europe  are 
honest  in  their  desire  for  it. 

I  am  writing  this  to  you  with  the  President's  knowl- 
edge and  consent  and  with  the  thought  that  it  will  be 
conveyed  to  Sir  Edward.  There  is  a  growing  impatience 
in  this  country  because  of  this  war  and  there  is  constant 
pressure  upon  the  President  to  use  his  influence  to  bring 
about  normal  conditions.  He  does  not  wish  to  do  any- 
thing to  irritate  or  offend  any  one  of  the  belligerent  na- 
tions, but  he  has  an  abiding  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  open 
and  frank  discussion  between  those  that  are  now  at  war. 

As  far  as  I  can  see,  no  harm  can  be  done  by  a  dispas- 
sionate discussion  at  this  stage,  even  though  nothing 
comes  of  it.  In  a  way,  it  is  perhaps  better  that  informal 
and  unofficial  conversations  are  begun  and  later  the 
principals  can  take  it  up  themselves. 

I  am  sure  that  Sir  Edward  is  too  great  a  man  to  let  any 
prejudices  deter  him  from  ending,  as  soon  as  possible,  the 
infinite  suffering  that  each  day  of  war  entails. 

Faithfully  yours, 
E.  M.  HOUSE. 

It  is  apparent  that  the  failure  of  this  first  attempt  at  ^^ 
mediation  discouraged  neither  Bernstorff  nor  the  Wash- 
ington administration.  Colonel  House  was  constantly 
meeting  the  German  and  the  British  Ambassadors;  he 
was  also,  as  his  correspondence  shows,  in  touch  with 
Zimmermann,  the  German  Under  Foreign  Secretary. 
The  German  desire  for  peace  grew  stronger  in  the  autumn 

1  Article  11  of  the  League  Covenant  reflects  the  influence  of  this  idea. 


J 


416      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

and  winter  of  1914-1915,  as  the  fact  became  more  and 
more  clear  that  Great  Britain  was  summoning  all  her  re- 
sources for  the  greatest  effort  in  her  history,  as  the  stale- 
mate on  the  Aisne  more  and  more  impressed  upon  the 
German  chieftains  the  impossibility  of  obtaining  any  de- 
cision against  the  French  Army,  and  as  the  Russians 
showed  signs  of  great  recuperation  after  the  disaster  of 
Tannenberg.  By  December  4th  Washington  had  evidently 
made  up  its  mind  to  move  again. 

From  Edward  M.  House 

115  East  53rd  Street, 

New  York  City. 
December  4th,  1914. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

The  President  desires  to  start  peace  parleys  at  the  very 
earliest  moment,  but  he  does  not  wish  to  offend  the  sensi- 
bilities of  either  side  by  making  a  proposal  before  the 
tune  is  opportune.  He  is  counting  upon  being  given  a 
hint,  possibly  through  me,  in  an  unofficial  way,  as  to  when 
a  proffer  from  him  will  be  acceptable. 

Pressure  is  being  brought  upon  him  to  offer  his  ser- 
vices again,  for  this  country  is  suffering,  like  the  rest  of 
the  neutral  world,  from  the  effects  of  the  war,  and  our 
people  are  becoming  restless. 

Would  you  mind  conveying  this  thought  delicately  to 
Sir  Edward  Grey  and  letting  me  know  what  he  thinks? 

Would  the  Allies  consider  parleys  upon  a  basis  of  in- 
demnity for  Belgium  and  a  cessation  of  militarism?  If 
so,  then  something  may  be  begun  with  the  Dual  Alliance. 

I  have  been  told  that  negotiations  between  Russia  and 
Japan  were  carried  on  several  months  before  they  agreed 
to  meet  at  Portsmouth.  The  havoc  that  is  being  wrought 
in  human  lives  and  treasure  is  too  great  to  permit  racial 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  417 

• 

feeling  or  revenge  to  enter  into  the  thoughts  of  those  who 
govern  the  nations  at  war. 

I  stand  ready  to  go  to  Germany  at  any  moment  in 
order  to  sound  the  temper  of  that  government,  and  I 
would  then  go  to  England  as  I  did  last  June. 

This  nation  would  not  look  with  favour  upon  a  policy 
that  held  nothing  but  the  complete  annihilation  of  the 
enemy. 

Something  must  be  done  sometime,  by  somebody,  to 
initiate  a  peace  movement,  and  I  can  think  of  no  way,  at 
the  moment,  than  the  one  suggested. 

I  will  greatly  appreciate  your  writing  me  fully  and 
freely  in  regard  to  this  phase  of  the  situation. 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

To  this  Page  immediately  replied : 

To  Edward  M.  House 

December  12th,  1914. 
MY  DEAR  HOUSE  : 

The  English  rulers  have  no  feeling  of  vengeance.  I 
have  never  seen  the  slightest  traces  of  that.  But  they 
are  determined  to  secure  future  safety.  They  will  not  * 
have  this  experience  repeated  if  they  can  help  it.  They 
realize  now  that  they  have  been  living  under  a  sort  of 
fear — or  dread — for  ten  years:  they  sometimes  felt  that 
it  was  bound  to  come  some  time  and  then  at  other  times 
they  could  hardly  believe  it.  And  they  will  spend  all  the 
men  and  all  the  money  they  have  rather  than  suffer  that 
fear  again  or  have  that  danger.  Now,  if  anybody  could 
fix  a  basis  for  the  complete  restoration  of  Belgium,  so  far 
as  restoration  is  possible,  and  for  the  elimination  of  mili- 
tarism, I  am  sure  the  English  would  talk  on  that  basis. 


418       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER    H.    PAGE 

But  there  are  two  difficulties — Russia  wouldn't  talk  till 
she  has  Constantinople,  and  I  haven't  found  anybody 
who  can  say  exactly  what  you  mean  by  the  "elimination 
of  militarism."  Disarmament?  England  will  have  her 
navy  to  protect  her  incoming  bread  and  meat.  How, 
then,  can  she  say  to  Germany,  "You  can't  have  an  army"? 
You  say  the  Americans  are  becoming  "restless."  The 
plain  fact  is  that  the  English  people,  and  especially  the 
English  military  and  naval  people,  don't  care  a  fig  what 
the  Americans  think  and  feel.  They  say,  "We're  fight- 
ing their  battle,  too — the  battle  of  democracy  and  free- 
^  dom  from  bureaucracy — why  don't  they  come  and  help 
us  in  our  life-and-death  struggle?"  I  have  a  drawer 
full  of  letters  saying  this,  not  one  of  which  I  have  ever 
answered.  The  official  people  never  say  that  of  course— 
nor  the  really  responsible  people,  but  a  vast  multitude  of 
the  public  do.  This  feeling  comes  out  even  in  the  pres- 
ent military  and  naval  rulers  of  this  Kingdom — comes 
indirectly  to  me.  A  part  of  the  public,  then,  and  the 
military  part  of  the  Cabinet,  don't  longer  care  for  Amer- 
ican opinion  and  they  resent  even  such  a  reference  to 
peace  as  the  President  made  in  his  Message  to  Congress.1 
But  the  civil  part  of  the  Cabinet  and  the  responsible  and 
better  part  of  the  public  do  care  very  much.  The  Presi- 
dent's intimation  about  peace,  however,  got  no  real 
response  here.  They  think  he  doesn't  understand  the 
meaning  of  the  war.  They  don't  want  war;  they  are  not 
a  warlike  people.  They  don't  hate  the  Germans.  There 
is  no  feeling  of  vengeance.  They  constantly  say:  "Why 

'From  the  President's  second  message  to  Congress,  December  8,  1914:  "It  is 
our  dearest  present  hope  that  this  character  and  reputation  may  presently,  in 
God's  providence,  bring  us  an  opportunity,  such  as  has  seldom  been  vouchsafed 
any  nation,  to  counsel  and  obtain  peace  in  the  world  and  reconciliation  and  a 
healing  settlement  of  many  a  matter  that  has  cooled  and  interrupted  the  friend- 
ship of  nations." 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  419 

do  the  Germans  hate  us?  We  don't  hate  them."  But, 
since  Germany  set  out  to  rule  the  world  and  to  conquer 
Great  Britain,  they  say,  "We'll  all  die  first."  That's 
"all  there  is  to  it."  And  they  will  all  die  unless  they  can 
so  fix  things  that  this  war  cannot  be  repeated.  Lady 
K — ,  as  kindly  an  old  lady  as  ever  lived,  said  to  me  the  other 
day:  "A  great  honour  has  come  to  us.  Our  son  has  ' 
been  killed  in  battle,  fighting  for  the  safety  of  England." 

Now,  the  question  which  nobody  seems  to  be  able  to 
answer  is  this:  How  can  the  military  party  and  the 
military  spirit  of  Germany  be  prevented  from  continuing 
to  prepare  for  the  conquest  of  Great  Britain  and  from 
going  to  work  to  try  it  again?  That  implies  a  change  in 
the  form,  spirit,  and  control  of  the  German  Empire.  If 
they  keep  up  a  great  army,  they  will  keep  it  up  with  that 
end  more  or  less  in  view.  If  the  military  party  keeps  in 
power,  they  will  try  it  again  in  twenty-five  or  forty  years. 
This  is  all  that  the  English  care  about  or  think  about. 

They  don't  see  how  it  is  to  be  done  themselves.  All 
they  see  yet  is  that  they  must  show  the  Germans  that 
they  can't  whip  Great  Britain.  If  England  wins  de- 
cisively the  English  hope  that  somehow  the  military 
party  will  be  overthrown  in  Germany  and  that  the 
Germans,  under  peaceful  leadership,  will  go  about  their 
business — industrial,  political,  educational,  etc. — and  quit 
dreaming  of  and  planning  for  universal  empire  and  quit 
maintaining  a  great  war-machine,  which  at  some  time, 
for  some  reason,  must  attack  somebody  to  justify  its  ex- 
istence. This  makes  it  difficult  for  the  English  to  make 
overtures  to  or  to  receive  overtures  from  this  military 
war-party  which  now  is  Germany.  But,  if  it  be  possible 
so  completely  to  whip  the  war  party  that  it  will  somehow 
be  thrown  out  of  power  at  home — that's  the  only  way 
they  now  see  out  of  it.  To  patch  up  a  peace,  leaving  the 


420      THE  LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER  H.   PAGE 

German  war  party  in  power,  they  think,  would  be  only  to 
invite  another  war. 

If  you  can  get  over  this  point,  you  can  bring  the  Eng- 
lish around  in  ten  minutes.  But  they  are  not  going  to 
take  any  chances  on  it.  Read  English  history  and 
English  literature  about  the  Spanish  Armada  or  about 
Napoleon.  They  are  acting  those  same  scenes  over 
again,  having  the  same  emotions,  the  same  purpose: 
nobody  must  invade  or  threaten  England.  "If  they  do, 
we'll  spend  the  last  man  and  the  last  shilling.  We  value," 
they  say  truly,  "the  good-will  and  the  friendship  of  the 
United  States  more  than  we  value  anything  except  our 
own  freedom,  but  we'll  risk  even  that  rather  than  admit 
copper  to  Germany,  because  every  pound  of  copper  pro- 
longs the  war." 

There  you  are.  I've  blinked  myself  blind  and  talked 
myself  hoarse  to  men  in  authority — from  Grey  down — to 
see  a  way  out — without  keeping  this  intolerable  slaughter 
up  to  the  end.  But  they  stand  just  where  I  tell  you. 

And  the  horror  of  it  no  man  knows.  The  news  is  sup- 
pressed. Even  those  who  see  it  and  know  it  do  not 
realize  it.  Four  of  the  crack  regiments  of  this  kingdom 
— regiments  that  contained  the  flower  of  the  land  and  to 
which  it  was  a  distinction  to  belong — have  been  practi- 
cally annihilated,  one  or  two  of  them  annihilated  twice. 
Yet  their  ranks  are  filled  up  and  you  never  hear  a  mur- 
mur. Presently  it'll  be  true  that  hardly  a  title  or  an 
estate  in  England  will  go  to  its  natural  heir — the  heir  has 
been  killed.  Yet,  not  a  murmur;  for  England  is  threat- 
ened with  invasion.  They'll  all  die  first.  It  will  pres- 
ently be  true  that  more  men  will  have  been  killed  in  this 
war  than  were  killed  before  in  all  the  organized  wars  since 
the  Christian  era  began.  The  English  are  willing  and 
eager  to  stop  it  if  things  can  be  so  fixed  that  there  will  be 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  421 

no  military  power  in  Europe  that  wishes  or  prepares  to 
attack  and  invade  England. 

I've  had  many  one-hour,  two-hour,  three-hour  talks 
with  Sir  Edward  Grey.  He  sees  nothing  further  than  I 
have  written.  He  says  to  me  often  that  if  the  United 
States  could  see  its  way  to  cease  to  protest  against 
stopping  war  materials  from  getting  into  Germany,  they 
could  end  the  war  more  quickly — all  this,  of  course,  in- 
formally; and  I  say  to  him  that  the  United  States  will 
consider  any  proposal  you  will  make  that  does  not  in- 
fringe on  a  strict  neutrality.  Violate  a  rigid  neutrality 
we  will  not  do.  And,  of  course,  he  does  not  ask  that.  I 
give  him  more  trouble  than  all  the  other  neutral  Powers 
combined;  they  all  say  this.  And,  on  the  other  side,  his 
war-lord  associates  in  the  Cabinet  make  his  way  hard. 

So  it  goes — God  bless  us,  it's  awful.  I  never  get  away 
from  it — war,  war,  war  every  waking  minute,  and  the 
worry  of  it;  and  I  see  no  near  end  of  it.  I've  had  only 
one  thoroughly  satisfactory  experience  in  a  coon's  age, 
and  this  was  this:  Two  American  ships  were  stopped  the 
other  day  at  Falmouth.  I  telegraphed  the  captains  to 
come  here  to  see  me.  I  got  the  facts  from  them — all  the 
facts.  I  telephoned  Sir  Edward  that  I  wished  to  see  him 
at  once.  I  had  him  call  in  one  of  his  ship-detaining 
committee.  I  put  the  facts  on  the  table.  I  said,  "By 
what  right,  or  theory  of  right,  or  on  what  excuse,  are  those 
ships  stopped?  They  are  engaged  in  neutral  commerce. 
They  fly  the  American  flag."  One  of  them  was  released 
that  night — no  more  questions  asked.  The  other  was 
allowed  to  go  after  giving  bond  to  return  a  lot  of  kerosene 
which  was  loaded  at  the  bottom  of  the  ship. 

If  I  could  get  facts,  I  could  do  many  things.  The  State 
Department  telegraphs  me  merely  what  the  shipper  says 
— a  partial  statement.  The  British  Government  tells  me 


422       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

(after  infinite  delay)  another  set  of  facts.  The  British 
Government  says,  "We're  sorry,  but  the  Prize  Court 
must  decide."  Our  Government  wires  a  dissertation  on 
International  Law — Protest,  protest:  (I've  done  nothing 
else  since  the  world  began!)  One  hour  with  a  sensible 
ship  captain  does  more  than  a  month  of  cross-wrangling 
with  Government  Departments. 

I  am  trying  my  best,  God  knows,  to  keep  the  way  as 
smooth  as  possible;  but  neither  government  helps  me. 
Our  Government  merely  sends  the  shipper's  ex-parte  state- 
ment. This  Government  uses  the  Navy's  excuse.  .  .  . 

At  present,  I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  see  a  way  to  peace, 
for  the  one  reason  I  have  told  you.  The  Germans  wish 
to  whip  England,  to  invade  England.  They  started  with 
their  army  toward  England.  Till  that  happened  England 
didn't  have  an  army.  But  I  see  no  human  power  that 
can  give  the  English  now  what  they  are  determined  to 
have — safety  for  the  future — till  some  radical  change  is 
made  in  the  German  system  so  that  they  will  no  longer 
have  a  war-party  any  more  than  England  has  a  war- 
party.  England  surely  has  no  wish  to  make  conquest  of 
Germany.  If  Germany  will  show  that  she  has  no  wish 
to  make  conquest  of  England,  the  war  would  end  to- 
morrow. 

What  impresses  me  through  it  all  is  the  backwardness 
of  all  the  Old  World  in  realizing  the  true  aims  of  govern- 
ment and  the  true  methods.  I  can't  see  why  any  man 
who  has  hope  for  the  progress  of  mankind  should  care 
to  live  anywhere  in  Europe.  To  me  it  is  all  infinitely  sad. 
This  dreadful  war  is  a  logical  outcome  of  their  condition, 
their  thought,  their  backwardness.  I  think  I  shall  never 
care  to  see  the  continent  again,  which  of  course  is  com- 
mitting suicide  and  bankruptcy.  When  my  natural 
term  of  service  is  done  here,  I  shall  go  home  with  more 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  423 

joy  than  you  can  imagine.     That's  the  only  home  for  a 
man  who  wishes  his  horizon  to  continue  to  grow  wider. 
All  this  for  you  and  me  only — nobody  else. 

Heartily  yours, 

WALTER  H.  PAGE. 

Probably  Page  thought  that  this  statement  of  the  case 
—and  it  was  certainly  a  masterly  statement — would  end 
any  attempt  to  get  what  he  regarded  as  an  unsatisfactory 
and  dangerous  peace.  But  President  Wilson  could  not 
be  deterred  from  pressing  the  issue.  His  conviction  was 
firm  that  this  winter  of  1914-1915  represented  the  most 
opportune  time  to  bring  the  warring  nations  to  terms, 
and  it  was  a  conviction  from  which  he  never  departed. 
After  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  the  Administration 
gazed  back  regretfully  at  its  frustrated  attempts  of  the 
preceding  winter,  and  it  was  inclined  to  place  the  re- 
sponsibility for  this  failure  upon  Great  Britain  and 
France.  "The  President's  judgment,"  wrote  Colonel 
House  on  August  4,  1915,  three  months  after  the  Lusi- 
tania went  down,  "was  that  last  autumn  was  the  time  to 
discuss  peace  parleys,  and  we  both  saw  present  possibili- 
ties. Wrar  is  a  great  gamble  at  best,  and  there  was  too 
much  at  stake  in  this  one  to  take  chances.  I  believe  if 
one  could  have  started  peace  parleys  in  November,  we 
could  have  forced  the  evacuation  of  both  France  and 
Belgium,  and  finally  forced  a  peace  which  would  have  \J 
eliminated  militarism  on  land  and  sea.  The  wishes  of 
the  Allies  were  heeded  with  the  result  that  the  war  has 
now  fastened  itself  upon  the  vitals  of  Europe  and  what 
the  end  may  be  is  beyond  the  knowledge  of  man." 

This  shows  that  the  efforts  which  the  Administration 
was  making  were  not  casual  or  faint-hearted,  but  that 
they  represented  a  most  serious  determination  to  bring 


N/ 


424       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

hostilities  to  an  end.  This  letter  and  the  correspondence 
which  now  took  place  with  Page  also  indicate  the  general 
terms  upon  which  the  Wilson  Administration  believed 
that  the  mighty  differences  could  be  composed.  The 
ideas  which  Colonel  House  now  set  forth  were  probably 
more  the  President's  than  his  own;  he  was  merely  the 
intermediary  in  their  transmission.  They  emphasized 
Mr.  Wilson's  conviction  that  a  decisive  victory  on  either 
side  would  be  a  misfortune  for  mankind.  As  early  as 
August,  1914,  this  was  clearly  the  conviction  that 
underlay  all  others  in  the  President's  interpretation  of 
events.  His  other  basic  idea  was  that  militarism  should 
come  to  an  end  "on  land  and  sea";  this  could  mean 
nothing  except  that  Germany  was  expected  to  abandon 
its  army  and  that  Great  Britain  was  to  abandon  its  navy. 

From  Edward  M.  House 

115  East  53rd  Street, 
New  York  City. 
January  4th,  1915. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

I  believe  the  Dual  Alliance  is  thoroughly  ready  for 
peace  and  I  believe  they  would  be  willing  to  agree  upon 
terms  England  would  accept  provided  Russia  and  France 
could  be  satisfied. 

They  would,  in  my  opinion,  evacuate  both  Belgium  and 
France  and  indemnify  the  former,  and  they  would,  I  think, 
be  willing  to  begin  negotiations  upon  a  basis  looking  to 
permanent  peace. 

It  would  surprise  me  if  the  Germans  did  not  come  out 
in  the  open  soon  and  declare  that  they  have  always  been 
for  peace,  that  they  are  for  peace  now,  and  that  they  are 
willing  to  enter  into  a  compact  which  would  insure  peace 
for  all  time;  that  they  have  been  misrepresented  and 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  425 

maligned  and  that  they  leave  the  entire  responsibility 
for  the  continuation  of  the  war  with  the  Allies. 

If  they  should  do  this,  it  would  create  a  profound  im- 
pression, and  if  it  was  not  met  with  sympathy  by  the  Allies, 
the  neutral  sentiment,  which  is  now  almost  wholly  against 
the  Germans,  would  veer  toward  them. 

Will  you  not  convey  this  thought  to  Sir  Edward  and  let 
me  know  what  he  says? 

The  President  is  willing  and  anxious  for  me  to  go  to 
England  and  Germany  as  soon  as  there  is  anything  .^ 
tangible  to  go  on,  and  whenever  my  presence  will  be  wel- 
come. The  Germans  have  already  indicated  this  feeling 
but  I  have  not  been  able  to  get  from  Spring  Rice  any 
expression  from  his  Government. 

As  I  told  you  before,  the  President  does  not  wish  to 
offend  the  sensibilities  of  any  one  by  premature  action,       , 
but  he  is,  of  course,  enormously  interested  in  initiating  at 
least  tentative  conversations. 

Will  you  not  advise  me  in  regard  to  this? 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

From  Edward  M.  House 

115  East  53rd  Street, 
New  York  City. 

January  18,  1915. 
DEAR  PAGE  : 

The  President  has  sent  me  a  copy  of  your  confidential 
dispatch  No.  1474,  January  15th. 

The  reason  you  had  no  information  in  regard  to  what 
General  French  mentioned  was  because  no  one  knew  of  it 
outside  of  the  President  and  myself  and  there  was  no  safe 
way  to  inform  you. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  has  been  no  direct  proposal 


426       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

made  by  anybody.  I  have  had  repeated  informal  talks 
with  the  different  ambassadors  and  I  have  had  direct 
communication  with  Zimmermann,  which  has  led  the 
J  President  and  me  to  believe  that  peace  conversations  may 
be  now  initiated  in  an  unofficial  way. 

This  is  the  purpose  of  my  going  over  on  the  Lusitania, 
January  30th.  When  I  reach  London  I  will  be  guided  by 
circumstances  as  to  whether  I  shall  go  next  to  France  or 
Germany. 

The  President  and  I  find  that  we  are  going  around  in  a 
circle  in  dealing  with  the  representatives  in  Washington, 
and  he  thinks  it  advisable  and  necessary  to  reach  the 
principals  direct.  When  I  explain  just  what  is  in  the 
President's  mind,  I  believe  they  will  all  feel  that  it  was 
wise  for  me  to  come  at  this  time. 

I  shall  not  write  more  fully  for  the  reason  I  am  to  see 
you  so  soon. 

I  am  sending  this  through  the  kindness  of  Sir  Horace 
Plunkett.  Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

P.  S.     We  shall  probably  say,  for  public  consumption, 
\       that  I  am  coming  to  look  into  relief  measures,  and  see  what 
further  can  be  done.     Of  course,  no  one  but  you  and  Sir 
Edward  must  know  the  real  purpose  of  my  visit. 

Why  was  Colonel  House  so  confident  that  the  Dual 
Alliance  was  prepared  at  this  time  to  discuss  terms  of 
peace?  Colonel  House,  as  his  letter  shows,  was  in  com- 
munication with  Zimmermann,  the  German  Under  For- 
eign Secretary.  But  a  more  important  approach  had 
just  been  made,  though  information  bearing  on  this  had 
not  been  sent  to  Page.  The  Kaiser  had  asked  President 
\  Wilson  to  transmit  to  Great  Britain  a  suggestion  for  mak- 
ing peace  on  the  basis  of  surrendering  Belgium  and  of 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  427 

paying  for  its  restoration.  It  seems  incredible  that  the 
Ambassador  should  not  have  been  told  of  this,  but  Page 
learned  of  the  proposal  from  Field  Marshal  French,  then 
commanding  the  British  armies  in  the  field,  and  this  ac- 
counts for  Colonel  House's  explanation  that,  "the  reason 
you  had  no  information,  in  regard  to  what  General  French 
mentioned  was  because  no  one  knew  of  it  outside  of  the 
President  and  myself  and  there  was  no  safe  way  to  inform 
you."  Page  has  left  a  memorandum  which  explains  the 
whole  strange  proceeding — a  paper  which  is  interesting 
not  only  for  its  contents,  but  as  an  illustration  of  the  un- 
official way  in  which  diplomacy  was  conducted  in  Wash- 
ington at  this  time: 

Field  Marshal  Sir  John  French,  secretly  at  home  from 
his  command  of  the  English  forces  in  France,  invited  me 
to  luncheon.  There  were  his  especially  confidential  friend 
Moore,  the  American  who  lives  with  him,  and  Sir  John's 
private  secretary.  The  military  situation  is  this :  a  trench 
stalemate  in  France.  Neither  army  has  made  appreciable 
progress  in  three  months.  Neither  can  advance  without 
a  great  loss  of  men.  Neither  is  whipped.  Neither  can 
conquer.  It  would  require  a  million  more  men  than  the 
Allies  can  command  and  a  very  long  time  to  drive  the 
Germans  back  across  Belgium.  Presently,  if  the  Russians 
succeed  in  driving  the  Germans  back  to  German  soil, 
there  will  be  another  trench  stalemate  there.  Thus  the 
war  wears  a  practically  endless  outlook  so  far  as  military 
operations  are  concerned.  Germany  has  plenty  of  men 
and  plenty  of  food  for  a  long  struggle  yet;  and,  if  she  use 
all  the  copper  now  in  domestic  use  in  the  Empire,  she  will 
probably  have  also  plenty  of  ammunition  for  a  long  strug- 
gle. She  is  not  nearly  at  the  end  of  her  rope  either  in  a 
military  or  an  economic  sense. 


428       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

What  then?  The  Allies  are  still  stronger — so  long  as 
they  hold  together  as  one  man.  But  is  it  reasonable  to 
assume  that  they  can?  And,  even  if  they  can,  is  it  worth 
while  to  win  a  complete  victory  at  such  a  cost  as  the  lives 
of  practically  all  the  able-bodied  men  in  Europe?  But 
can  the  Allies  hold  together  as  one  man  for  two  or  three 
or  four  years?  Well,  what  are  we  going  to  do?  And  here 
came  the  news  of  the  lunch.  General  French  informed 
me  that  the  President  had  sent  to  England,  at  the  request 
of  the  Kaiser,  a  proposal  looking  toward  peace,  Germany 
offering  to  give  up  Belgium  and  to  pay  for  its  restoration. 

"This,"  said  Sir  John,  "is  their  fourth  proposal." 

"And,"  he  went  on,  "if  they  will  restore  Belgium  and 
give  Alsace-Lorraine  to  France  and  Constantinople  will 
go  to  Russia,  I  can't  see  how  we  can  refuse  it." 

He  scouted  the  popular  idea  of  "crushing  out  mili- 
tarism "  once  for  all.  It  would  be  desirable,  even  if  it  were 
not  necessary,  to  leave  Germany  as  a  first-class  power. 
We  couldn't  disarm  her  people  forever.  We've  got  to 
leave  her  and  the  rest  to  do  what  they  think  they  must 
do;  and  we  must  arm  ourselves  the  best  we  can  against 
them. 

Now — did  General  French  send  for  me  and  tell  me  this 
just  for  fun  and  just  because  he  likes  me?  He  was  very 
eager  to  know  my  opinion  whether  this  peace  offer  were 
genuine  or  whether  it  was  a  trick  of  the  Germans  to— 
publish  it  later  and  thereby  to  throw  the  blame  for  con- 
tinuing the  war  on  England? 

It  occurs  to  me  as  possible  that  he  was  directed  to  tell 
me  what  he  told,  trusting  to  me,  in  spite  of  his  protesta- 
tions of  personal  confidence,  etc.,  to  get  it  to  the  President. 
Assuming  that  the  President  sent  the  Kaiser's  message 
to  the  King,  this  may  be  a  suggested  informal  answer— 
that  if  the  offer  be  extended  to  give  France  and  Bussia 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  429 

what  they  want,  it  will  be  considered,  etc.  This  may  or 
may  not  be  true.  Alas!  the  fact  that  I  know  nothing 
about  the  offer  has  no  meaning;  for  the  State  Depart- 
ment never  informs  me  of  anything  it  takes  up  with  the 
British  Ambassador  in  Washington.  Well,  I'll  see. 

These  were  therefore  the  reasons  why  Colonel  House 
had  decided  to  go  to  Europe  and  enter  into  peace  nego- 
tiations with  the  warring  powers.  Colonel  House  was 
wise  in  taking  all  possible  precautions  to  conceal  the  pur- 
pose of  this  visit.  His  letter  intimates  that  the  German 
Government  was  eager  to  have  him  cross  the  ocean  on 
this  particular  mission;  it  discloses,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  British  Government  regarded  the  proposed 
negotiations  with  no  enthusiasm.  Sir  Edward  Grey 
and  Mr.  Asquith  would  have  been  glad  to  end  hostili- 
ties on  terms  that  would  permanently  establish  peace 
and  abolish  the  vices  which  were  responsible  for  the 
war,  and  they  were  ready  to  welcome  courteously  the 
President's  representative  and  discuss  the  situation  with 
him  in  a  fair-minded  spirit.  But  they  did  not  believe 
that  such  an  enterprise  could  serve  a  useful  purpose. 
Possibly  the  military  authorities,  as  General  French's 
remarks  to  Page  may  indicate,  did  not  believe  that  either 
side  could  win  a  decisive  victory,  but  this  was  not  the  be- 
lief of  the  British  public  itself.  The  atmosphere  in  Eng- 
land at  that  time  was  one  of  confidence  in  the  success  of 
British  arms  and  of  suspicion  and  distrust  of  the  British 
Government.  A  strong  expectation  prevailed  in  the 
popular  mind,  that  the  three  great  Powers  of  the  Entente 
would  at  an  early  date  destroy  the  menace  which  had 
enshrouded  Europe  for  forty  years,  and  there  was  no  in- 
tention of  giving  Germany  a  breathing  spell  during  which 
she  could  regenerate  her  forces  to  resume  the  onslaught. 


430       THE   LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF   WALTER   H.    PAGE 

In  the  winter  of  1915  Great  Britain  was  preparing  for  the 
naval  attack  on  the  Dardanelles,  and  its  success  was  re- 
garded as  inevitable.  Page  had  an  opportunity  to  observe 
the  state  of  optimism  which  prevailed  in  high  British 
circles.  In  March  of  1915  he  was  visiting  the  Prime 
Minister  at  Walmer  Castle;  one  afternoon  Mr.  Asquith 
took  him  aside,  informed  him  of  the  Dardanelles  prepara- 
tions and  declared  that  the  Allies  would  have  possession 
of  Constantinople  in  two  weeks.  The  Prime  Minister's 
attitude  was  not  one  of  hope;  it  was  one  of  confidence. 
The  capture  of  Constantinople,  of  course,  would  have 
brought  an  early  success  to  the  allied  army  on  all  fronts.1 
This  was  the  mood  that  was  spurring  on  the  British  public 
to  its  utmost  exertions,  and,  with  such  a  determination 
prevailing  everywhere,  a  step  in  the  direction  of  peace  was 
the  last  thing  that  the  British  desired;  such  a  step  could 
have  been  interpreted  only  as  an  attempt  to  deprive  the 
Allies  of  their  victory  and  as  an  effort  to  assist  Germany 
in  escaping  the  consequences  of  her  crimes.  Combined 
with  this  stout  popular  resolve,  however,  there  was  a  lack 
of  confidence  in  the  Asquith  ministry.  An  impression 
was  broadcast  that  it  was  pacifist,  even  "defeatist,"  in  its 
thinking,  and  that  it  harboured  a  weak  humanitariariism 
which  was  disposed  to  look  gently  even  upon  the  behaviour 
of  the  Prussians.  The  masses  suspected  that  the  ministry 
would  welcome  a  peace  with  Germany  which  would  mean 
little  more  than  a  cessation  of  hostilities  and  which  would 
leave  the  great  problems  of  the  war  unsolved.  That  this 
opinion  was  unjust,  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  British 
Foreign  Office  was  steadily  resisting  all  attempts  to  end  the 

^The  opening  of  the  Dardanelles  would  have  given  Russian  agricultural  products 
access  to  the  markets  of  the  world  and  thus  have  preserved  the  Russian  economic 
structure.  It  would  also  have  enabled  the  Entente  to  munition  the  Russian 
Army.  With  a  completely  equipped  Russian  Army  in  the  East  and  the  Entente 
Army  in  the  West,  Germany  could  not  long  have  survived  the  pressure. 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  431 

war  on  an  unsatisfactory  basis,  Page's  correspondence,  al- 
ready quoted,  abundantly  proves,  but  this  unreasoning 
belief  did  prevail  and  it  was  an  important  factor  in  the 
situation.  This  is  the  reason  why  the  British  Cabinet  re- 
garded Colonel  House's  visit  at  that  time  with  positive 
alarm.  It  feared  that,  should  the  purpose  become  known, 
the  British  public  and  press  would  conclude  that  the 
Government  had  invited  a  peace  discussion.  Had  any 
such  idea  seized  the  popular  mind  in  February  and  March, 
1915,  a  scandal  would  have  developed  which  would  prob- 
ably have  caused  the  downfall  of  the  Asc[uith  Ministry. 
"Don't  fool  yourself  about  peace,"  Page  writes  to  his 
son  Arthur,  about  this  time.  "If  any  one  should  talk 
about  peace,  or  doves,  or  ploughshares  here,  they'd  shoot 
him." 

Colonel  House  reached  London  early  in  February  and 
was  soon  in  close  consultation  with  the  Prime  Minister 
and  Sir  Edward  Grey.  He  made  a  great  personal  success ; 
the  British  statesmen  gained  a  high  regard  for  his  dis- 
interestedness and  his  general  desire  to  serve  the  cause  of 
decency  among  nations ;  but  he  made  little  progress  in  his 
peace  plans,  simply  because  the  facts  were  so  discouraging 
and  so  impregnable.  Sir  Edward  repeated  to  him  what  he 
had  already  said  to  Page  many  times :  that  Great  Britain 
)  was  prepared  to  discuss  a  peace  that  would  really  safe- 
guard the  future  of  Europe,  but  was  not  prepared  to  dis- 
cuss  one  that  would  merely  reinstate  the  regime  that  had 
existed  before  1914.  The  fact  that  the  Germans  were 
not  ready  to  accept  such  a  peace  made  discussion  use- 
less. Disappointed  at  this  failure,  Colonel  House  left  for 
Berlin.  His  letters  to  Page  show  that  the  British  judg- 
ment of  Germany  was  not  unjust  and  that  the  warn- 
ings which  Page  had  sent  to  Washington  were  based  on 
facts : 


432      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

From  Edward  M.  House 

Embassy  of  the  United  States  of  America, 

Berlin,  Germany, 

March  20,  1915. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

I  arrived  yesterday  morning  and  I  saw  Zimmermann1 
almost  immediately.  He  was  very  cordial  and  talked  to 
me  frankly  and  sensibly. 

I  tried  to  bring  about  a  better  feeling  toward  England, 
and  told  him  how  closely  their  interests  touched  at  certain 
points.  I  also  told  him  of  the  broad  way  in  which  Sir 
Edward  was  looking  at  the  difficult  problems  that  con- 
fronted Europe,  and  I  expressed  the  hope  that  this  view 
would  be  reciprocated  elsewhere,  so  that,  when  the  final 
settlement  came,  it  could  be  made  in  a  way  that  would 
be  to  the  advantage  of  mankind. 

The  Chancellor  is  out  of  town  for  a  few  days  and  I  shall 
see  him  when  he  returns.  I  shall  also  see  Ballin,  Von 
Gwinner,  and  many  others.  I  had  lunch  yesterday  with 
Baron  von  Wimpsch  who  is  a  very  close  friend  of  the 
Emperor. 

Zimmermann  said  that  it  was  impossible  for  them  to 
make  any  peace  overtures,  and  he  gave  me  to  understand 
that,  for  the  moment,  even  what  England  would  perhaps 
consent  to  now,  could  not  be  accepted  by  Germany,  to  say 
nothing  of  what  France  had  in  mind. 

I  shall  hope  to  establish  good  relations  here  and 
then  go  somewhere  and  await  further  developments.  I 
even  doubt  whether  more  can  be  done  until  some  decisive 
military  result  is  obtained  by  one  or  other  of  the  bellig- 
erents. 

1German  Under  Foreign  Secretary. 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  433 

I  will  write  further  if  there  is  any  change  in  the  situation. 
I  shall  probably  be  here  until  at  least  the  27th. 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

From  Edward  M.  House 

Embassy  of  the  United  States  of  America, 

Berlin,  Germany. 

March  26,  1915. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

While  I  have  accomplished  here  much  that  is  of  value, 
yet  I  leave  sadly  disappointed  that  no  direct  move  can  be 
made  toward  peace. 

The  Civil  Government  are  ready,  and  upon  terms  that 
would  at  least  make  an  opening.     There  is  also  a  large 
number  in  military  and  naval  circles  that  I  believe  would 
be  glad  to  begin  parleys,  but  the  trouble  is  mainly  with 
the  people.     It  is  a  very  dangerous  thing  to  permit  a  peo- 1 
pie  to  be  misled  and  their  minds  inflamed  either  by  the/ 
press,  by  speeches,  or  otherwise. 

In  my  opinion,  no  government  could  live  here  at  this 
time  if  peace  was  proposed  upon  terms  that  would  have 
any  chance  of  acceptance.  Those  in  civil  authority 
that  I  have  met  are  as  reasonable  and  fairminded  as  their 
counterparts  in  England  or  America,  but,  for  the  mo- 
ment, they  are  impotent. 

I  hear  on  every  side  the  old  story  that  all  Germany 
wants  is  a  permanent  guaranty  of  peace,  so  that  she  may 
proceed  upon  her  industrial  career  undisturbed. 

I  have  talked  of  the  second  convention,1  and  it  has  been 
cordially  received,  and  there  is  a  sentiment  here,  as  well  as 

llt  was  the  Wilson  Administration's  plan  that  there  should  be  two  peace  gather- 
ings, one  of  the  belligerents  to  settle  the  war,  and  the  other  of  belligerents  and 
neutrals,  to  settle  questions  of  general  importance  growing  out  of  the  war.  This 
latter  is  what  Colonel  House  means  by  "the  second  convention." 


434      THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

elsewhere,  to  make  settlement  upon  lines  broad  enough  to 
prevent  a  recurrence  of  present  conditions. 

There  is  much  to  tell  you  verbally,  which  I  prefer  not 
to  write. 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

Colonel  House's  next  letter  is  most  important,  for  it 
records  the  birth  of  that  new  idea  which  afterward  be- 
came a  ruling  thought  with  President  Wilson  and  the 
cause  of  almost  endless  difficulties  in  his  dealings  with 
Great  Britain.  The  "new  phase  of  the  situation"  to 
which  he  refers  is  "the  Freedom  of  the  Seas"  and  this 
brief  note  to  Page,  dated  March  27,  1915,  contains  the 
first  reference  to  this  idea  on  record.  Indeed,  it  is  evident 
from  the  letter  itself  that  Colonel  House  made  this  no- 
tation the  very  day  the  plan  occurred  to  him. 

From  Edward  M.  House 

Embassy  of  the  United  States  of  America, 

Berlin,  Germany. 

March  27,  1915. 
DEAR  PAGE: 

I  have  had  a  most  satisfactory  talk  with  the  Chancellor. 
After  conferring  with  Stovall,1  Page,2  and  Willard,3  I  shall 
return  to  Paris  and  then  to  London  to  discuss  with  Sir 
Edward  a  phase  of  the  situation  which  promises  results. 

I  did  not  think  of  it  until  to-day  and  have  mentioned  it 
to  both  the  Chancellor  and  Zimmermann,  who  have  re- 
ceived it  cordially,  and  who  join  me  in  the  belief  that  it 
may  be  the  first  thread  to  bridge  the  chasm. 

JMr.  Pleasant  A.  Stovall,  American  Minister  to  Switzerland. 
2Mr.  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  American  Ambassador  to  Italy. 
8Mr.  Joseph  E.  Willard.  American  Ambassador  to  Spain. 


GERMANY'S  FIRST  PEACE  DRIVES  435 

I  am  writing  hastily,  for  the  pouch  is  waiting  to  be 
closed. 

Faithfully  yours, 

E.  M.  HOUSE. 

The  "freedom  of  the  seas  "was  merely  a  proposal  to  make 
all  merchant  shipping,  enemy  and  neutral,  free  from  at- 
tack in  time  of  war.     It  would  automatically  have  ended 
all  blockades  and  all  interference  with  commerce.     Ger- 
many would  have  been  at  liberty  to  send  all  her  merchant 
ships  to  sea  for  undisturbed  trade  with  all  parts  of  the 
world  in  war  time  as  in  peace,  and,  in  future,  navies  would 
be  used  simply  for  fighting.     Offensively,  their  purpose 
would  be  to  bombard  enemy  fortifications,  to  meet  enemy 
ships  in  battle,  and  to  convoy  ships  which  were  transport- 
ing troops  for  the  invasion  of  enemy  soil;  defensively, 
their  usefulness  would  consist  in  protecting  the  homeland 
from  such  attacks  and  such  invasions.     Perhaps  an  argu- 
ment can  be  made  for  this  new  rule  of  warfare,  but  it  is  at 
once   apparent  that  it  is  the   most  startling  proposal 
brought  forth  in  modern  times  in  the  direction  of  disarma- 
ment.    It  meant  that  Great  Britain  should  abandon  that 
agency  of  warfare  with  which  she  had  destroyed  Napoleon, 
and  with  which  she  expected  to  destroy  Germany  in  the 
prevailing   struggle — the   blockade.     From   a   defensive 
standpoint,  Colonel  House's  proposed  reform  would  have 
been  a  great  advantage  to  Britain,  for  an  honourable  ob- 
servance of  the  rule  would  have  insured  the  British  people 
its  food  supply  in  wartime.     With  Great  Britain,  however, 
the  blockade  has  been  historically  an  offensive  measure: 
it  is  the  way  in  which  England  has  always  made  war. 
Just  what  reception  this  idea  would  have  had  with  official 
London,  in  April,  1915,  had  Colonel  House  been  able  to 
present  it  as  his  own  proposal,  is  not  clear,  but  the  Germans, 


436       THE   LIFE   AND   LETTERS   OF  WALTER   H.    PAGE 

with  characteristic  stupidity,  prevented  the  American 
from  having  a  fair  chance.  The  Berlin  Foreign  Office  at 
once  cabled  to  Count  Bernstorff  and  Bernhard  Dernburg 
— the  latter  a  bovine  publicity  agent  who  was  then  pro- 
moting the  German  cause  in  the  American  press— with 
instructions  to  start  a  "propaganda"  in  behalf  of  the 
"freedom  of  the  seas."  By  the  time  Colonel  House 
reached  London,  therefore,  these  four  words  had  been 
adorned  with  the  Germanic  label.  British  statesmen 
regarded  the  suggestion  as  coming  from  Germany  and  not 
from  America,  and  the  reception  was  worse  than  cold. 

And  another  tragedy  now  r  oughly  interrupted  President 
Wilson's  attempts  at  mediation.  Page's  letters  have  dis- 
closed that  he  possessed  almost  a  clairvoyant  faculty  of 
foreseeing  approaching  events.  The  letters  of  the  latter 
part  of  April  and  of  early  May  contain  many  forebodings 
of  tragedy.  "Peace?  Lord  knows  when!"  he  writes  to 
his  son  Arthur  on  May  2nd.  "The  blowing  up  of  a  liner 
with  American  passengers  may  be  the  prelude.  I  almost 
expect  such  a  thing."  And  again  on  the  same  date:  "If 
a  British  liner  full  of  American  passengers  be  blown  up, 
what  will  Uncle  Sam  do?  That's  what's  going  to  happen." 

"We  all  have  the  feeling  here,"  the  Ambassador  writes 
on  May  6th,  "that  more  and  more  frightful  things  are 
about  to  happen." 

The  ink  on  those  words  was  scarcely  dry  when  a  message 
from  Queenstown  was  handed  to  the  American  Ambassa- 
dor. A  German  submarine  had  torpedoed  and  sunk  the 
Lusitania  off  the  Old  Head  of  Kinsale,  and  one  hundred 
and  twenty -four  American  men,  women,  and  children  had 
been  drowned. 


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